Char 00 01 12 01

For comparison, this is the blocky object from which the previous render was derived through Catmull-Clark subdivision.   It can be greatly  improved (and will be, if the creek don't rise) ...

Purpose is to minimize the role of handicraft in the work, and maximize the role of the computer.  That is, the idea is to contrive a model like this that a standard automatic procedure will reduce to something acceptable, perhaps even pleasing.  This is the genotype -- the DNA, so to speak -- for which the smoothed object is the phenotype.