I mentioned that I got the hand target modeled. Well mostly. there are a couple more details that I would like to add. But it could be used as is.
So in case you aren’t familiar with hand targets for martial arts, there are some different types, I’m used to the clapper type. Here’s what one looks like.
I had been thinking about how to create the shape and was trying to decide what basic primitive I would start with. Then I thought, what if I used the create shape choice and see what that would get me. I had seen it used in the rigging tutorials for some of the controls so I thought it might work to let me create the shape I wanted. The shape though was hollow, just an outline. I turned it into and editable poly and that filled it in. But it didn’t make it 3 dimensional. I extruded it and that got me depth so it was starting to look good. The only thing was that it was one big polygon but it was a messy n-gon which I didn’t want.
So the next step was to see if I could break it up into quads, four-sided polygons. It turned out to work better than I expected. I didn’t have to add but one or two vertices to break it 
up nicely. Then I connected the vertices with edges and things were looking good. I was able to add some edge loops at that point so I had more to work with. They even flowed really nicely, though I did some adjustment to make it look really nice.
The target is basically two of these shaped sides attached at a handle. So I made a copy of what I had to create the other side. Since I was going to connect them at the handle, I deleted the faces in between and then I connected them. I angled the heads away from each other a little before I did that. I needed some space between them so I could create the connecting geometry inside.
With the two sides created I started working on refining the look and softening the edges. Turbosmooth wasn’t much help with that at this point so work had to be done to make the transition softer. I really did a lot of fiddling with vertices to get to this point. I had the top side to a point that I felt like it was really going to work. And since I started this really late I figured it was a good stopping point, so I went to bed.
I will confess, when I went to work on it the next day my hand was still a bit sore and stiff from point manipulation so I went and saw the Avengers movie before I got started again.
I finished up the bottom to match the top and then did a bit more refining to add something of a padded look to the targets and then an extra edge loop to give a nice seam on the handle. I did have to adjust the very base at the end of the handle. It was a little to long.
And with a little turbosmooth added to make it look nice.
Here’s a side view so you can see the seperation I was trying to make sure was there. It’s very important that it look like that because then, when you kick it or hit it, it slaps together and makes a nice loud sound.
For the wrist strap I used a torus and severely deformed it to get the right shape.
I still have a little more detail that I keep thinking I will add but I haven’t gotten to it yet.