Confession up front: I cheated a little bit. I used a fair few loop cuts for this, and we’re not supposed to know that yet. Still pretty basic, but if I don’t share it, then I can’t justify how much time I spent making it.
And here’s a render view of it with way too much yellow in the sun lamp.
I might still add a pilot seat and landing gear. Clean up the cockpit’s… windshield? Is that what it’s called on a plane? A windshield?
Looks good 
If it were an enclosed cockpit it’d be a canopy but for open cockpits I thing Windscreen is the preferred term
Thanks!
And I like “windscreen” way better.
As it happens, I was thinking I might enclose it later.
I think it was an interesting decision to use a plane as the first independent modelling challenge in the course. It’s an object very easy to represent with basic shapes and very few polygons (I think the instructor’s model ended up being around thirtysomething?).
But the concept has such potential for complexity that it could probably last through the entire course. By the end, you could have a highly detailed model with realistic materials applied, a full interior, rigging and animation for propellers (or jet engines!), wings, flaps, landing gear, hatches.
I don’t know. I might play with this one more and see where it goes.
Now that sounds like an interesting challenge… I just might try that on my third trip through 
Oh dang, you’ve already been through the course twice? That’s pretty cool!
I’m pretty familiar with Blender, interface-wise, but I’m not very experienced as a modeler. I did some interior arch-viz stuff on a hobbyist level a couple years ago, but I never made it far with hard surface modeling. That’s most of why I’m here, is to learn proper technique for modeling things that aren’t composed entirely of ninety-degree angles.
Glancing through, though, it looks like the course goes much further than that. Do you have any thoughts on the rest of the course from this point? Any advice for a lapsed beginner?
nah man, I’m on my second run now
With take a little time to make sure you’re familiar with the current interface (they released 2.79 just before I started this pass) and spend time trying to model things that push you in the areas you want to improve.
If you really want to challenge yourself to model more organic models, try and find a chess set that will require that kind of modeling for section 4. But mostly, watch what Micheal does and then try and do it yourself. Artistic License is a term he’ll introduce in the next section… take advantage of it!
