Roger

Yay! I right-clicked one of the problems splines and chose "refind normals" and that did it.

I tried selecting one of the patches that has a dark corner, then right clicking and choosing "flip normal" - doesn't seem to have done anything though. I though that there was an option to display normals but I can't seem to find that.

Thanks so much, I'm going to check that out. In the meantime, I'm just going to live with the creases. I'm not sure they will be all that noticeable when I apply the clay shaders, anyway.

I also have some bad creases around the mouth but I'm not sure thats going to be possible to fix.

Ok, well that kinda worked. I have a ton of 5 point patches now (marked w/ red Xs) - do you think this will be a problem? I wasn't planning on doing a lot of facial animation, but the xtra rings might make it easier. At least it helped me solve the problem of how to close those patches. I will need to spend a lot of time adjusting individual CPs though, as the model looks a touch lumpy now.

I think I have something that might work - if I could get that large patch to be a valid 5 point patch. I've tried making it a 5 pointer and it doesn't want to be a 5 point patch no matter the order I select the CPs in. I would then hook the other 2 splines in where the blue Xs are.

I wonder if the reason it will not attach is that there is already a hook above and below it. That could be why its having so many issues trying to "figure out" where to hook in.

A hook won't attach where you've drawn it? Unfortunately, no - it would be wonderful if it did. It jumps either above or below that point and ends up looking awful.

Ok I've done some stitching in of new splines, I have that half of the face closed off. I'm not sure if I should use a hook to join the proposed spline (in red) to that patch to close it off, or if I sould make that a 4 point patch by putting a cp there, but ten I'm lef with the problem of how to close up that patch to the right - I can't turn it into a 5 point patch as there would then be too many CPs. I'm also concerned I'm creating to much geometry. If I hook it in, it will close everything off and leave valid patches, but the hook wants to jump to an odd position on the vertical spline, leaving the mesh looking messy. The other thing I am wondering is if I will need to redo my carefully done rigging now, since I will have all these additional splines.

Ok, I see where you're going with this. Do you think it would be better to fix one half of the face, then do a CFA or just fox both halves manually? Also, I'm going to be tweaking the proportions of the head in relation to the rest of the body to see if I can get a "cuter" looking penguin - do you forsee problems doing this? I'm worried that it may have been easier to just model it that way from the get-go, I'm more or less pleased with the model but I want to get it looking closer to my sketches.

Are you thinking of something like this? Get rid of the spline w/ the X on it and make that patch a 5 point patch?

This might work, but I am thinking it may look kind of odd. I have a feeling I'm going to have to futz with it a lot to get it to look right.

Do you mean a spline running horizontally or vertically?

I think I have the first bit nailed, and some idea how to hook the lower beak/jaw into the face - what I'm worried about are the corners of the beak/mouth - the part I circled in green. Not sure how exactly I'm going to get that area to be a valid patch - will probably have to be a 5 point patch I'm guessing but there are 6 points so far that make up that area.

Thats what it was - here is the head w/ closed patches.

I think I broke some patches - let me close those 5 pointers and post again.

Here's the shaded version:

I think it probably makes most sense to insert some CPs into the face corresponding to the CPS on the back of the beak (the ones on the outside, anyway, don't see a need to do it for internal ones) so that I can have something to attach it to. Not sure yet how I'm going to do it just yet so that I don't mess up what I already have. I have included a screenshot, red dots correspond to the CPs.

I'm trying to puzzle out how I'm going to attach this thing to the face - not sure what the best way to go about tying it in is. Anyone out there have thoughts about attaching noses, snouts, beaks, etc to a face when modelled separately?

Thanks I need to figure out how I'm going to attach it to the face, and maybe tweak the size of the lower beak in relation to the upper beak a bit, but thats more or less what its going to look lke. Making the lip on the front was much easier after seeing you do it, I most likely would have done the "scale the points way down" method of closing it off but this seems much more elegant.

OK - here it is, Beak Mark II:

One thing to keep in mind when modeling is to think about how it works and looks in real life. This even - nay, especially - applies to "cartoony" characters. You still want to have the basic structure of the body correct or it doesn't look quite right. When in doubt, google! Type "penguin" or "bird beak" or whatever you're looking for into a google image search and you'll find LOADS of reference pictures to help you out. I had the right shape for the cross section. I probably should have used a rotoscope as a guide, would have made adjusting the profile easier as opposed to freehanding it. I couldn't figure out how Rob did the rounded section on the front of his until I actually saw him pull extrude the 3 points that make up the righthand side and then rotate them and extrude and rotate again.

Here's an update - I ended up going with something "expedient" for the beak because it was giving me fits.

Did you do a spline that loops back around to make the beak, or did you do that some other way?

Do you recommend then doing it as 2 separate halves, then joining those together somehow?