How to model a mesh of curved axe? I am trying to model this axe and I don't know how to do it properly. I've highlighted the part I'm trying to make here:



I tried two different main approaches so far:


Start off from a plane and extrude its edges so I could cover the entire body, then extrude/solidify the surface to add some thickness to the mesh. What I don't like about this method is the mesh shape. That part of the weapon has clear, smooth curves and it is something I can't seem to achieve by just modeling a plane. This is a quick example of what I'm trying to do here:

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Bézier curves. I can recreate a cool shape with this method, but once the curve is converted to a mesh and then extruded or solidified, I don't have vertex but a huge face on the front part. This leads to a very weird mesh, also some curves still have a way too high vertex density which makes bevel and subsurf impossible.


What would be the correct approach here?
The shape is very organic. Sculpting will let you explore the shape the fastest. You can quickly establish creases and surface curvatures and change them without much effort to your liking.

Once you are happy with the form, retopologize it into your final mesh. You have 3 options:


low poly mesh with baked normal/displacement map
low poly with subsurface modifier with creasing
low poly with subsurface modifier with control loops


If you would be experienced sub-d modeler, I believe you could model the shapes on the fly. But sculpting is easy and fast and it will help you, because the surface will be well defined and you will know better where the edge-loops go and how the topology needs to be.