concentrating on topology, making sure there isn't any weird warps in the mesh. so far it's been going well & i haven't ran into many problems, the modeling is probably about 50% done. i found that adding edge loops are easier by beveling rather then using the edge loop itself. i feel like i have more control over where the lines will made rather then maya calculating the edge loop itself. the only flaw i've encountered using the bevel tool is sometimes tris will be developed between edges that aren't being beveled. i try to stay with as much quads as possible, but a couple of tris won't do much harm. i usually look over the mesh smoothed out to make sure there is no weird warps in the mesh cased by the tris. also, sometimes i can over come the tris by merging some vertex where the edge loops meet.
so over all my goal is too have a clean mesh model & then laying out the UVs & successfully texturing it.
here is some wired images & a quick render of the model.
i think when i'm ready to post up a WIP for CG Society i'll play with some test metal textures & a templete with the name of the model to make it a bit more presentable to people.
images:
