hi friend!

for me, edge looping is a strategy to get different patches of geometry together. in addition you´ll find the geometry fitting major muscle groups. confusing part of those edgeloops is, you build the patches out of 1 single piece of geometry.

1) create a cube. increase subdivision from 1 to 20. move vertices and shape the form of a head with this method. it is possible but tedious. what you get is a mesh where every vertex is connected to 4 edges and every face has four sides. kind of scanned appearance consisting out of more or less straight vertical and horizontal edges.


2) create a cube. split em down with MJpolyTools until getting a rough headlike form. now comes the most important part. find a couple of strategic vertices where you connect a 5th edge to. what you get in the end is a complete different looking mesh where 99% of all vertices are connected to 4 edges but some verts have 5 edges. and STILL - all faces are quads.


to find those strategic spots is the trick of creating edgeloops. I had been thinking about edgeloops for a very long time. this would be my explanation on them and how I understood the process.

! create those extra edgelines in the very beginning of modeling. that prevents you from having a hard time remodeling it later!

you can see it on mtmckinley´s pic - most verts have 4 but some have more edges. or take a look at this pic and search for those verts with extra edges.

https://www.bunk.cistron.nl/plaatjes/buildup.gif

kind regards!