Handgun modelling - help appreciated

ModelAnon

Hi all,
Decided to start modelling again and wanted to model and rig a handgun so I could get experience with it. Problem is, I have absolutely no idea how to get started and am 100% sure I am doing this horribly wrong. Below is what I've got so far:

I'm really lost on how to do this, and this just looks... Well, completely wrong. I don't even know what help to ask for, but would appreciate any suggestions anyone can give me.

Dethling

If you want to rigg the model I would stay with the real-world "object" seperation (slade, main body, trigger, hammer, safety switch).
Look for more referenze picture, especially pictures of the dis-assembled weapon, they will help you.

Also I would change the unit settings to real world setting (e.g. cm) and build a model of the bullet for the weapon.
With this you can easily determinate the thickness of the weapon/barrel.

ModelAnon

At this point I'm actually more concerned with the modelling than rigging part. I've got reference pictures for all six sides, taken by the company that manufactured it, so they're decent references - but I just don't know how to turn that into good geometry. A recommendation I've heard often but one which doesn't seem to be working here is to block out the main shape and then go from there - for me, this results in an absolute mess of geometry that's of nonuniform size.

Pedro Amorim

Start with the barrel. Put down the cylinder and go from there. Easy to start judging sizes and how each part goes with each other when you have a part that you know it's the perfect size.

fullchaos13

Always awesome to see people using Blender . Generally the way you want to approach any hard surface object is breaking everything down into its major forms and considering every large form as its own separate object. Depending on the level of detail and quality of animations you want, you may want to create more forms/objects or less. I did a quick block out of a gun I found online (couldn't find your particular gun) describing what I'm talking about.

Each color represents a major form and would have its own unique geometry separate to every other piece. I could have made even more colors here depending on the level of detail I wanted to achieve, just got lazy.

Right now you're tackling the entire gun as one form and although this approach can work but you will either run into a lot of complications or the end result will look horrendous.
Anyways good luck on the gun and have fun!

ModelAnon

Thanks for the responses, appreciated.

I did want to separate the gun into its parts (frame, slide, trigger, hammer) but hadn't thought of separating the sights from the slide or the trigger guard from the frame. 

How would you all recommend keeping a cleaner geometry? There's a lot of curves on it and it seems like it'd get messy fast.

FullChaos: Thanks for the diagram; the one I'm using is the Beretta 92FS. Recently, they released an anniversary edition and very nice pictures to go along with it, so I figured I might as well use those.

Pedro Amorim

You hadnt considered splitting the trigger guard from the frame because it makes no sense. It's all part of the same object.

fullchaos13

Yeap you're right it's definitely part of the same object. Was trying to showcase the general idea that it's good to split things up into as many objects as possible, especially when modelling more complex hard surface pieces.

RedRogueXIII

Make complex things from lots of simpler parts:
- Big bits
- List of all the bits
- Inside bits
- Not exactly the same model but really good form reference bits

For visualizing clean geometry, make sketches of your subject on paper, then draw the control edgeloops over it. It's faster and easier to try different flow approaches on a quick sketch than retopologizing your model.