wow thanks for the help Michael! it's not every day you have the developer of the software you're using be the first to come to your aid! you're awesome.

thanks for the links, i'm slowing wrapping my mind around the difference in approach.

for now i've been struggling with just the lower half of the face plate (the part from the bottom half of the eye down to the mouth opening). i tried to do a network surface with no luck. and i don't see how i can take a bigger shape and remove bits with booleans to get all those different curves... but that's probably because i'm brand new to nurbs.

it is however encouraging that someone on here actually made an ironman suit with Moi!