with Subdivision Surfaces
By Rich Suchy
Capping the Toe:
Select the foremost band of polygons around the toe you are working with
and hide the rest of the geometry. Looking down the y axis you will see
two rings of edges conected by perpendicular edges. Determine which is
the foremost ring so that you can see best how to arange the points that
will make up the cap of the toe.
Create and arrange points in such a way as to create the tip of the toe.
The highlit area shows the new geometry. I used 6 points, so that I could
avoid using triangles, and created quadrangles from them. Depending on
the number of sides that you have around your toes, you will have diferent
amounts of points. Odd numbers will more than likely yield triangles.
Create a Bed For the Toe-Nails:
Organize your polygons on the ends of your toe so that they resmble
the positioning of a toe-nail. Smooth-Shift or Bevel those faces inwards
and edit the points until you have a satisfactory bed for a toenail.
You may have to Smooth-Shift more than once to get enough geometry.
The front of the toe should be smoothly rounded and the bed of the nail
should create a pocket at the root of the nail and walls at the sides.
Use the Nail-bed to Make a Toe-Nail: Select the faces that form the
flat bed of the nail. These polygons will form the base for a toe-nail.
Copy those polygons to another layer or move the copies off to the side.
Copy the new polygons into memory with Ctrl c. Using "Smooth-Shift" give your planes thickness, then paste (Ctrl V) the copy in memory on top of your current selection and Merge Points. You should have a self enclosed geometry rather than a shell. Position your toe-nail into the nail bed and edit as needed.