[Finished] Aston Model 1842 caplock pistol

Anura_Interceptor

This is my first major project that I did outside of a tutorial, everything before this was fairly simple and only required very basic box modeling. It's taken 11 months because I lost interest and got back into it so many times. It's rough in a few areas, but I think going to a new project and doing it better from the start with what I've learned is more productive then redoing whole parts over again after spending so long already.

Sketchfab embed wouldn't work, so here's the link https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/aston-model-1842-5e8a8b258f43423a8592cd57c42a0785

Textures used are metal19 for the steel bits, metal07 for the brass, and wood09 for the wood, all from cc0textures.com.

[FIRST POST BELOW]

I'm fairly new to 3D modelling, this pistol is the first big project that pushes the limits of my ability that I've done. Naturally, I've hit some roadblocks and need advice. This is my first version of the handle, it has some pretty bad shading errors related to non-planar faces in the transition from the flat to the curved areas.

I started over completely anew and made this much better handle. The problem is I still haven't figured out how I'm going to make that flat area without screwing anything up. I'm also running into issues with that dropoff beside the end of the barrel. Does anyone have advice for making difficult geometry like this? A screenshot of similar shapes you've made would work. A book or a video that goes into detail on making difficult shapes while maintaining good topology would be perfect.

Brian "Panda" Choi

We're lazy people; do you mind also posting your reference photos that you're using?

regardless, I'd look into midpoly modeling.  This may help you think about your modeling in a less constrained way.

Anura_Interceptor

Yes, I was considering putting them in the OP but I felt like it might have been too many images.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Are you using booleans to cut your shapes?

Anura_Interceptor

The first time around, I made a line in the shape of that flat area, then removed all the faces from the handle that were in the way and made new faces connecting them to the flat area. For the second handle I used booleans to get that rounded area next to the hammer. I've tried both my first method and booleans to get the flat area on the second handle.

Anura_Interceptor

It's been almost a year since I started this, I need to start working on projects more often.

https://i.imgur.com/rSNpnPm.mp4

I'm very close to done with the general shape of the hammer, I just need to figure out how to smooth out these creases a bit before doing minor adjustments. Is there any way to keep the artifacting protection of having a face loop around the major details, while also avoiding that crease at the areas where multiple such face loops converge? I tried insetting the areas where the creases happen and that just makes them more pronounced. After this part is done it's just a few screws and minor shape changes before the model is finished.

HAWK12HT

Using too many polygons for starting out it will hurt your modelling skills. 
Just follow 3 point curve guide and you ll be happy, basically you let subdivision do the heavy work like if you put 3 points on paper to form a triangle > and apply turbosmooth it will look like )  this. Hope it make sense. 
Better check out Arimus on Youtube for modelling help!  

Anura_Interceptor

I want to focus on working without subdivision, my main interest is making video game assets, so I'm avoiding subdivision except for making high poly models for retopology (which I haven't done with this model, I started with the low poly because I didn't understand that type of workflow at the time I started this project).