[Weapon] Geballte Ladung 3kg [WIP]

Hey there, so after Lucky.boy posted about tasks for the Project Normandy mod I decided I would give one of the easier models a try as I'm still very much a noob at modelling. As a result I picked the Gebalte Ladung 3kg and would really love feedback on it.

Again, I'm still finding my way around 3dsmax and the countless tutorials I've watched can only do so much. I'm finding I need direct criticism and experience to really get better!

This is the reference I've been mainly using



Anyways, on to the model.

What I've got so far:

Main Body with Edged Faces

unsmoothed:



smoothed:









Clamp Smoothed and Unsmoothed






Here are the parts I'm concerned about:



Not sure if that's a bad thing or nothing to worry about.




Here's an Edged Faced Shot of above





I feel like the tip of the arc is too pointy but I'm having a bit of trouble flattening it out.

Regarding optimization I have two versions of this model in the scene. One where I deleted a ton of edges that I believe to be unneeded and one where I left them in. When I smoothed out the two I got a slight difference



So if you notice where I highlighted there's a lighting difference between them. Hard to explain but I hope the picture will show it well. I'm not sure if that's anything to be concerned about. The one on the right has more edges in the mesh. Here's an edged face shot:



Ah and one more question, as far as keeping different parts of the model separate for now, what are the protocols regarding that? The clamp, handle, and bolts are all separate now, but do those need to be eventually connected to the mesh?


That's it for now. I'm working on making the handle fit better and look better, then I'll take a look at modelling the holes where the fuse goes into. In addition, I am using 3ds max 2012. I know it's definitely not ideal as the model will need to be backported but I can't get access to 3ds max 9. :(