1.Start your project with finding good referance images. Using Goggle and
http://www.the-blueprints.com/ is a goog place to start. Place your images either as imageplanes or as a texture on polyplanes.


2. Start blocking the shapes using simple geometry (boxes and cylinders). Don't use the PolygonSphere because it has a lot of triangles that's not got for the geometry flow.


3. Add geometry by using Mesh -> Smooth and hit 3 to smooth the geometry further.


4. Move the vertices to get the right shape and delete the faces at the back and use split polygon tool to add lines.


5. Add more geometry by using Mesh -> Smooth.


6. Use Split Polygon tool to draw out the shape of the door. Select the faces of the door and use Mesh -> Extract. Hide the door and keep it for later.


7. Select the edges around the hole and extrude the edge in to get a frame and better smoothing.


8. Repeat the last step for the windows.


9. Start to add some details, keep the geometry simple and clean. Let the geometry flow with the lines in the model.


10. Add a cylinder for the back end.


11. Delete the faces where the two object intersect. Combine the two objects and merge the vertices.Keep adding detalis like the landing rails.


12. Extrude the faces on the top of the helicopter and delete a coulpe of faces for the rotor.


13. Create the backwings by creating Cylinders. Scale them to fit and add a lot of lines with insert edge tool. Scale some of the lines outwards to make the ripple effects.


14. Create the rotor with mainly cylinders shaped and scaled. Add lines when needed.


15. Add details to the copit. I have also added a lot of knots around the body to give it some extra realisme (this can of course also be done in the textures).


16. The first test render with some more details. The render is done in Mental Ray using Physical Sun and Sky and Mia material.


17. UV-mapping of the helicopter where done with Planer Mapping and smooth UV-tool. The texsture were made in Adobe Photoshop


18. I found a good background image and blocket out the scene.


19. I used image projection for the background so I could move the camera in the scene. You can see the final animation here: http://www.vimeo.com/25909974