Modeling a ribbon

Sylvan

I am having trouble making something delicately simple like a ribbon (see picture).
Especially the curving are giving me a headache and I feel there is a much easier way to do it than how I am handling it.
It's sometimes the most simple of things that can be hard in life ;)
What tools would you use to bend it and with what shape would you start?

Ghostman

In the Utilities tab you have different deformers you can play with for this.
Personally i always use the line tool for something like this. Much easier and quicker way to come up with the shape you need.
Then just add thickness to it and fine tune the last bits.

rtweed

If you create a bezier curve and a thin rectangle using line tools, then use "sweep line" under surface modelling, you'll end up with a ribbon shape comprised of dynamic geometry that you can tweak until it looks right. If you don't care about it being a solid with faces on both sides, you can use a line (instead of the rectangle for the ends) and get a ribbon-like surface that is completely flat.

Start with the line/rectangle selected, then click sweep, then click on the curve. If everything was positioned correctly you should get a ribbon shape, in which case choose "validate" (otherwise go back and try moving things around until you get it right).

You can then select the curve and move the control points around to tweak the shape, including adding some twists if you move the control points in all 3 dimensions. I'm not sure if you can add control points later, so it's probably best to start with more than you need and then either crop off any excess after you convert to static geometry, or delete the extra control points if you want to keep it dynamic (note that doing that will affect other parts of the curve, so you'll need to re-tweak it).

It can be a bit sensitive and give excessive twisting when control points positions are too extreme, but that can generally be fixed by having more control points and just playing around with the positioning so you get a nice smooth curve.

Sylvan

Thank you, Ghostman for your input, I'll have a go at it!

rtweed, thank you so much for your detailed description!
I'm starting Hexagon now and will fiddle with it.
If I have a mentionable result, I'll post it here :)