Reply To: Is this topo acceptable?
Hi Deb,
There are indeed some confusing things happening.
First: the image on the left is a different method than the others (and one I would use).
Also, this is all done on a Planethe thickness of the model comes later. This is actually a great workflow.
From the 2nd to the 3rd it is not clear how that is done. The left part seems to be using Simple Subdivision and the right (curved) part Cattmull-Clark. The only way I managed to acchieve that (but that might be my lacking Modeling skills), is by using 2 Objects, Subdividing them in the 2 different ways and then Applying the Modifiers and Joining the 2 Objects and then Merging the Vertices. Something like this:
If I just would have used a Subdiv on 1 Object, it would result in this (sorry for the green line, ignore that please):
(Again with Boundary Smooth set to Keep Corners.)
Then from the 3rd to the 4rth image, the fix this area, is a bit of work, Delete most of the inner Verts of the right side of the Mesh and r-create it as shown (or similar).
The Extrude part is clear and then you can CTRL + twice, to grow the Seletion to something like this:
And then simply Inset.
Hope this helps.