This from based on a previous posting/tutorial by elgeneralisimo called "Quick and Dirty Mech". He has good technique, Oh... there he is! I incorporated his technique and mind for a more efficient way of modeling. It is partly spline, partly vertex. The Madcat's elbow is lathed and the barrels on the vulture are lathed as well. You can learn alot from many of the people here. The madcat cockpit and the jiant shins are spline objects and the rest are based on primitives. Only before reading elgener's posting, I would never have thought about using splines in a mechanical model.