Cut fins into a lure - sketching onto an arbitrary surface with tangency

[nkloski]

Hi all!  I am trying to make some "fins" cut into a fishing lure.  I can create the base shape either by lofted sketch profiles (better), or by Sculpting (worse, since it is direct modeling).

I desire to cut fins into the side of the shape like this:

Can someone advise me on how to "plan" this?  Projecting a sketch onto the surface does not work well on this sort of curved surface, so I was thinking about doing some surface cutting via 3D sketches but that has its own problems.  With a 3D sketch, I can create all of the features I want BUT:   I can not figure out how to get tangency of those features to the arbitrary curve of the body, to allow for a good blend into the body.

Or maybe I am going about this incorrectly, does someone have a workflow suggestion?

Thanks!

[davebYYPCU]

That is the perfect job for advanced Sculpting, over the modelling section.

i admit not being able to demonstrate it - but have seen examples in the Forum where that type of layering was done, 

search for PhilProcarioJr's Wolf project, as one that comes to mind.

Might help....

[laughingcreek · Accepted solution]

Here is a screen cast demonstrating do a gill in a lure 

[nkloski]

This is a great recording, thanks!  It looks as if the tangency is somewhat created by max'ing out the "smooth" loft connection type.  That should be good enough to then place fillets on some of the edges if needed, hopefully.

This gets me going very well, thanks!