My guess is that you translated the flattened hull at object level instead of translating at component level. In a blendshape (morph), the vertices need to move somewhere for the magic to happen.
As @Steppenwolf advised, block out in 3d from your top view based on your sketch........and then let the magic of 3d take you to the left/front view...... :)
does the thread title have anything to do with the movie? Becuase damn this sounds familiar but i dont remember the title. the magical sunglass movie...aliens ....wtf!@!!
Yeah, that's a pretty good idea. A good way around that for most cases is to bake a normal map with padding 0 and then use the magic wand tool on the base colour.
It's similar to the Good-Fast-Cheap, pick two, paradigm. There is no magic trick to get everything, it's a matter of striking a balance with the resources that you have as best as you can.
the reason no one noticed is, everything made on a computer is just pushing buttons you know no real skills involved, just some photoshop filters and magic buttons