Starting a Low Poly Model to try and Hand Paint Student WIP

Apaulsen

Hey so I'm attempting to model a sword/dagger really more so to test and play with hand painting and texturing. I'll post WIP just because I know it is good to get myself out there and ask for help. Using this as more of a learning experience.

Anyways are there any modeling tricks or anything that will make unwrapping and hand painting go any smoother?

Thanks for the look

Apaulsen

So I'm starting to get close to unwrapping but I am having a minor problem, and I think it has to do with topology of the whole on the blade. It seems to be rendering oddly, almost like an n-gon but there are none. If anyone has any suggestions that'd be great.

I attempted to turn the face cut angles on the right sword and cant decide or see if that is even helping, and I am still having trouble with the apparent tris around the hole.

Does this even matter? Will it be covered by textures?

Any help would be appreciated and thanks for the look

Bek

Those two edge loops in red do nothing for the shape (Waste of vertices), and should be removed (Unless the large faces of the blade aren't planar, for example if it tapers in at the back. It's hard to tell from that screenshot).

Apaulsen

Thanks for the input Bek. It tapers slightly into the back edge of the blade, so would I want to remove those? I see what you mean if it were completely flat but the back edge tapers slightly.

Bek

You should be able to remove the left-most edge I marked in red without causing any trouble (it might even be slightly pushed in or out, causing those slight shading artifacts), shouldn't take too long to check anyway.

Apaulsen

So I've had time to start working on it again today and if I remove the loops, The sword becomes very flat and I kind of liked the subtle shape it gave it with the loops. Is there any other way of fixing the hole that you can think of because I still get those weird shading artifacts. Ill post more later.