So, I'm pretty much the most novice of novice users and this is what I came up with after doing some reading and messing around with tools that I didn't know what they did.
I read that when rendering, objects, characters, models, and just about everything behaves much more nicely during animation when it is one prim. So I met that challenge and didn't do too badly I don't think. Not that I know anything about animating, but I think this would do well, being generally accurate to the real thing.
I have a question for my advanced users, though - how do I do things like this without moving vertex by vertex and then extruding? The extruding thing is really neither here nor there, but do the genuinely 'good' renderers go down to vertex detail on everything? I just need to know that there isn't a better way to do what I am doing and I'll be happy.
Please and thanks.