It seemed like it might be something like a Knight's armored helmet. If so, imagine a blacksmith building the helmet - he wouldn't try to make the whole thing out of just one piece, it's going to be some different pieces joined together. You'll probably get better results approaching it in a similar way.

Trying to do a single big piece with a lot of details all in one single surfacing command just does not tend to work very well, the details will kind of spread out along the surface

- Michael