Barrel Proxy and High Poly Models

 

Making the chain was a learning experience, but what I ended up doing was making a torus, scaling it a bit to make it look like a chain link. I then duplicated it, and rotated the second one to make the beginning of the chain. Then I duplicated the barrel, combined the mesh and made it live which allowed me to snap curves to the model. I used the EP curve tool to make the base shape of the chain. I then selected the two chain links and the curve and used the constrain tool to attach it to the curve. Then, I used the visualize > show animation snap shot and tweaked some of the values until the chain followed the curve and looked nice. Then I combined the chain models. It was a really fun learning experience and I plan to use the same method to add some more fun details around the outside of the barrel. 

Here is my reference art, from the card game known as Gwent. They have some really cool stylized barrels that they use to help define which card set you are purchasing, and I wanted to recreate one of them in 3D.