Uh, here, I drew a [very bad] picture, the orange is the "non rendering [control] box", and as you extrude things from it the actual mesh, in green, would change, but it would be a much more fluid shape.



As it turns out I just realized that if I make something all boxy add a UVW unwrap and then a Meshsmooth modifier it seems to do that same thing I was going for, but I'd still like to find out how to accomplish the original idea as well.