I just start by sketching the silhouette in my head, then I keep the edge flow to a straight line whenever possible. If a vertex is never used by the shape, it’s a waste. Use the minimal number of triangles to close a face, but always watch the normals – a flipped normal can throw the whole silhouette off. And keep the mesh quads wherever you can; they’re easier to edit and look cleaner than a hodgepodge of triangles. Once the core shape is tight, I run a quick render in silhouette mode to spot any unevenness before I add detail. It’s the same discipline you’d use for a well‑lined pen stroke: fewer, stronger lines, and everything stays in harmony.

Triangles can work, but if you skip the edge flow you’ll end up with a jagged silhouette and a headache later. A clean loop makes every split predictable, and a good naming scheme keeps everyone on the same page—speed is nice, but a clean file beats a rushed one when you come back to tweak.

I’ll keep the names in a file I can actually read when I return—nothing beats a clean file to save a headache later. As long as the silhouette stays tight, the splits stay clean, and the triangles stay honest, we’ll have a model that won’t collapse under its own weight. And hey, speed is great, but polish keeps the project from falling apart when you go back for the details.