Spline modelling

With the reference plates loaded in and the viewport set to the front view I traced the topology using a splines. Using splines make it easier to just draw the points on top of the guides. I set up the spline so that it would only create straight corners and not curves.

I turned on snap and set this to vertex. This made it easier to trace the topology and made sure that the vertices were lined up exactly.

When trying to trace over some of the smaller parts of the topology the mouse snapped to the wrong vertex. I solved this by going to the snap settings adjusting the snap radius.

I traced all of the topology and then selected one of the spline shapes and converted it to an editable poly.

I then used the attach button to attach all of the other spline sections together into one editable poly. Even though all the splines now belonged to the same editable poly the vertices were not joined. I used weld to join the overlapping vertexes together creating one mesh.

Next I lined up the vertices down the middle of the face by selecting them and then selecting make planar on the x axis. This will make sure that these vertices are straight for when using a symmetry modifier later.

Following the guide for the topology that I had created in the previous step made sure the topology was correct. This part was quite easy as the topology had already been planned out so it was just a case of tracing the guides.