test blend

as previously mentioned, i wish to limit the amount of...mess ups. My last project resulted in a loss of blend shapes and foot attributes, and although im confident as to why this happened, i wished to test a few scenarios to rule out any other reasons why this may have occured.

with my john model, i duplicated it and then had 2 different setups

1. head and lower body geometry are NOT connected, blend shapes are made simply from the head and then the lower geometry is connected AFTERWARDS
2. head and lower body geometry are CONNECTED, blend shapes are made from this.

this was a good experiment as the second model seemed to work more effectivly than the first. im not sure whether my maya got confused bout two sets of characters in there, but once the geometry had been connected and verts merged seemed unable to create a new set of blend shapes.  I have read back through my book on rigging and the characters demonstrated seem fully connected and able to have multiple blend shapes so it shouldnt be an issue. it would be if further additions to the model were added. 

to push it one step further (as i say im really really trying to consider every potential reason why i suffered issue last time) i created a quick rig and bound it to the model. Again in both instances this meant that the rig could be manipulated as well 

overall, im confident which method to take now, and am reassured why i had the issues last term. As long as i don't confuse the models history by adding more edge loops etc to it then all blend shapes and attributes should work effectively.