I pressed onward to learn a little more about UV unwrapping tips and tricks and I found a workflow that I thought was quite helpful from this guy regarding the smart UV unwrap. Somehow this way of doing things clicked for me because I absolutely am having a hard time marking seams. Perhaps it is cheating but maybe someone could watch it and comment on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJH7_-dNtZg the guy has an accent but once I got past that I learned a lot of the power of the smart unwrap and how to use it to suit your model.