adding detail (extruding a grill type part at top) to a box mesh without affecting lower part of mesh Hello all I'm still learning Blender and I am stuck understanding the best way of adding some extruded parts to the top of my mesh. Im modelling a Glock 17, its fairly blocky so thought it might be an ok mid-project (i've made stuff such as Bottles, cups, tables etc and even made a pretty decent car which took me forever and probably had lots of 'errors' in the mesh.)

Anyway as you will see in the picture, I want to add a bunch of splits in the top rear part of the gun barrel. I could do this by adding some loop-cuts running vertically where i want the slices to appear. But this will run lots of unnecessary loop cuts into the lower barrel and handle of the gun.

What would be the best way to avoid these loop cuts?

Pics:
It is not ideal to do what you are asking because you will most likely have to triangulate your mesh.

I recommend going with the loop cut, finishing your model, triangulating it (control-t), then decimating it down without losing quality (Note: Decimate is a modifier :D ).

But if you insist on doing it now:

Make the loop cut and select the vertices you don't want.

Double press G to slide along the edge and move it on top of the next edge.

Press W and select remove doubles.

If you have done it properly, there should be a single triangle in the middle of your mesh.

:D

Good luck with your project and I hope I helped,

BFB