Mantis stage 1

Ok, so with the mantis, what i wish to do first is create the basic anatomy of the mantis then add the intricacies and what not later on.

So, shown in these pictures is the head of the mantis, quite simple to model, basically it's 3 polygon cubes and with using the editable poly modifier I just switched on the NURMS subdivision to get a nice and smooth shape, I could have done it with 3 spheres, but I found this approach much more hands on and I personally found it a lot easier to manipulate the shape as a cube using this approach.

For the antenna i used the same modelling approached but used a cylinder shape instead, also using the extrude tool to help shape the antennae to the way I wanted, when i was happy with how it looked I cloned the antenna to make two (lazy I know!!). Although using this approach to modelling smooth objects I did find that you have to be really careful to make sure that none of the polygons in your model are overlapping or in a odd position as it creates a grim looking fold which when rendered just looks like a pocket of shadow.