Grid Fill causing corner bulges even after subdivision – how to fix?

Hi Deb,

You can try this: in Edit Mode, SHIFT+ALT+S > To Sphere and then Move your Mouse to the right (or just press 1).

After that, you'll have to use Proportional Editing again, to get the 'bell' shape back.

However, it is probably better to not use Grid Fill for this; Grid Fill works best for flat patches. Concentric rings will work better, something like this:

Usually with subdivision you want a holding edge, so in your case, like Martin says, you need a circle around your perimeter with the same shape to hold things together. You want this extra loop:

So that these guys are not in your perimeter pinching your mesh:

Hi Deb,

Don't know what you did wrong there:

Did you Scale the Curve in Object Mode, maybe?

A tip for the furture:

Do not Scale Curves in Object Mode!

With Meshes, you can Apply the Scale, when you've Scaled in Object Mode, to get the same result as if you had Scaled in Edit Mode.

But Applying the Scale of Curves, can really mess things up.

To connect them, I would Adjust the Curve, not the lamp:

ALT + J isn't working because one is a mesh object and the other is a curve. You have to convert the curve to a mesh. You have to go to Object -> Convert -> Mesh. 

Yes you need to Apply all Modifiers, then you can Join them. If you try to Join them now, all Objects get the Modifers of the Active Object and thet is not what you want.

Easiest way, Select all the Meshes, then Object > Convert > Mesh to Apply all Modifiers. Then CTRL+J to Join them.

Okay, 

Delete all Subdiv Modifiers.

Select all Objects apart from the Curve and Convert to Mesh.

CTRL+J to Join.

In Edit Mode, connect everything.

You will notice, that your 'wire' has way too much geometry to work with, so you should go back and re-make that.

Can you post a screenshot of the area you say looks like it's not the same object? Everything seems to work fine for me. 

I'd recommend to Delete the Subdivs, before they get Applied (when you Convert to Mesh), because otherwise you have too much Geomtery to wrangle when you are going to manually connect the pieces.

The manual part is so little work, that, when you try to do this automatically with Booleans or so, you'll end up doing more manual work, cleaning up the mess.

It's basically connecting Cylinders together (Bridge Edge Loop). This only works well, if two Cylinders have the same amount of Vertices (and start with simple Geometry):

Now, with this knowledge, knowing what you'll need, you should start from scratch (yes, really!). The second time it'll go a lot faster!

It's normal you are struggling, you need quite a bunch of modeling knowledge to get around connecting parts into one sold mesh. That's where all the modeling rules come to be applied. In other words, you need a lot of practice still, 3D modeling is not easy. So don't feel like you need to know how to do it flawlessly at this point. In your case with the lamp, crashing the meshes into each other is no big deal, since they join at ends on the lamp where it's barely noticeable. 

The challenge is always to know the exact loop count you need to define al the main shapes. A lot of times you have too much or too little. That is why Martin is saying to apply the SubD, because you'll have too much geometry and the mesh becomes uncontrollable. 

So go ahead and practice, do it wrong and fail, it;s essential to fail, because your brain learns what not to do. You keep trying and make your brain start to get how to go about modeling, because it's one of those skills that you need to re-wire your brain so it becomes natural to you.