How to setup character outlines to facilitate better topology? I a beginner modeler and had a question regarding my process creating 3D characters. For example, let's say I'm modelling a character's head. I typically start by having a front-facing and profile-view reference set up in Blender which I use to create an outline of the character's head. Then I'll rotate the camera and outline the character's head's profile the same way. When I do this, I use an arbitrary amount of vertices which I think may be causing my issue.
My issue is, when I start extruding vertices from these outlines and generating faces, the faces start to curl up and I don't know where the remaining faces should go. Here is an example of a character's head that I'm trying to model


I don't know if you can tell, but my process is that I select a vertex on the outline, extrude it in necessary direction (towards the center of the face), repeat with neighboring vertices, and create a face between four of them. This process starts to crumble a bit when you notice that I have so many faces starting to squeeze together/collapse as I try to connect them to the center of my character's face. Is it because I arbitrarily chose the vertex density of my character's outline? Should I try to keep the number of vertices I use for the head's outline to match up with the number of vertices I use for the character's profile so they can cleanly match up together?
Or is the problem that I can't simply expect to generate &quot;rows&quot; of faces cleanly like how I've been trying to. In my last model I made, I would resolve the same issue by creating somewhat ugly quads that made some parts of the character look awkward. Hopefully I made my issue clear, and thanks for reading.
This is a natural limitation to flat-plane 3-D (the current technology). Basically, one will end up with a few awkward quads or even tris, but this is normal. I recommend you look at others' models of similar characters, and check out the topology. You will need to start connecting things here, so think about &quot;if this mesh were to deform, what parts of it would need to be bendable?&quot; as you create the joining topology.
Beautify Faces might be useful for cleaning up and standardizing the topology once you're finished. :-)