Need help in modeling Mauser C96 trigger guard area

Cake_Seller

Hi, I'm learning 3D modeling and right now I'm following the tutorial of Simon Fuchs where he creates a game-ready asset of Mauser C96. In his tutorial he uses zBrush hardsurface polish workflow (or dynamesh hardsurface workflow, I don't actually know the right name for it).

This is the gun I want to model:



This is the part I have the trobles with:



I have managed to roughly create the shape I want, but the topology is a mess, shading is bad and the whole process was rather tedious. AFAIK topology and shading are not super important for this workflow since we gonna dynamesh whole model later, but anyway I want to learn how to model it the proper way. I'm not using subdivision surface for this model cause I'm not sure that it's a good decision to use it with this part of the gun.

Overall Simon created a great tutorial (you can check out his end result here https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lVy0bV ), but I feel that a better job can be done in this particular part of the model.
I have a hard time modeling it and keeping the right bevel sizes and geometry of these parts:


First I have tried to boolean parts like this:


but then I found it very hard to bevel edges and maintain the shape of this part:


Then I did it Simon's way — modeling it from two separate pieces:

You can see my result of this approach in the second image in this post. It was very tedious to connect these two parts. Probably because I had more geometry than Simon did.

So my question is — how would you approach modeling this piece? What would you call the "right way" of modeling this (if the "right way" is a valid term at all)?

In attachment you can find a .blend (and FBX) file with all you need if you decide to model this part.
Any advice will be appreciated!

Kanni3d

imo, if you're going to a follow a tutorial, just do exactly as he does instead of deviating...? Doing a different workflow than his may end up causing you even more confusion/headache/mismatching down the road when he brings it into zbrush etc.

But yes, a rule of thumb for those kinda of shape is that less is more. having lots of loops and geometry and trying to get the shape right is a lot of micro adjustments, which is asking for artifacting and lumpiness. Start with a low chunky result for you to have a much easier time editing the shape, and use subdivision to your advantage (not for a final sub-d result, but to add more geometry to get much more curvature established so it is no longer low poly and chunky).

Cake_Seller

Kanni3d said:

imo, if you're going to a follow a tutorial, just do exactly as he does instead of deviating...? Doing a different workflow than his may end up causing you even more confusion/headache/mismatching down the road when he brings it into zbrush etc.

First of all, thank you for your advice!
Since I'm learning I'm trying to not miss the opportunity to experiment and try different approaches just to get the experience. I think that's not bad even if I end up with a mismatch, I believe making more mistakes now will help me to avoid them in the future. If something will not work as expected I will step back and redo it to match the tutorial.

Kanni3d said:

But yes, a rule of thumb for those kinda of shape is that less is more. having lots of loops and geometry and trying to get the shape right is a lot of micro adjustments, which is asking for artifacting and lumpiness. Start with a low chunky result for you to have a much easier time editing the shape, and use subdivision to your advantage (not for a final sub-d result, but to add more geometry to get much more curvature established so it is no longer low poly and chunky).

I like this advice, I will try it 
Indeed I was aiming for high fidelity, so I added a lot of segments to my bevels and then had a tough time trying to merge the trigger guard part with the rest of the gun's body. I missed the option to make it low poly and then add a subdivision surface modifier.

Kanni3d

Not sure what the terminology/usage is in blender, but make sure it's subdividing along hard/creased edges so you don't lose your shape (again, we aren't making it soft here, just want to use sub-d to add more geo to do the heavy lifting).

Here's an example in Max, using the low poly and sub-d with hard edges (the low poly in this usage is also known as cage mesh) to create this curvy shape with very little edges/vertices being manipulated.

sacboi

This object is fairly basic, really just made up of a cube with two cylinders so my approach would be a combination of those techniques you've already tested up too this point.

Hence, a hybrid methodology.