I found a tutorial on how to make a item with meta data in 1.8 at: http://bedrockminer.jimdo.com/modding-tutorials/basic-modding-1-8/blockstates-and-metadata/

 

I followed this tutorial, however ModelBakery.addVariantName() has been deprecated...

 

My item will not render without this line, can anyone please help? I'm sure it is a very easy process but I have never tried using metadata before.

That worked! Thank you!

I came upon another issue... I keep getting this error message while starting up the game:

[16:14:11] [Client thread/ERROR] [FML]: Exception loading model for variant <modid here>:<meta_item here>#inventory for item "<modid here>:<meta_item here>", normal location exception: 
net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoaderRegistry$LoaderException: Exception loading model <modid here>:item/<meta_item here> with loader VanillaLoader.INSTANCE, skipping
at net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoaderRegistry.getModel(ModelLoaderRegistry.java:134) ~[ModelLoaderRegistry.class:?]
at net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoader.loadItemModels(ModelLoader.java:298) ~[ModelLoader.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.renderer.block.model.ModelBakery.loadVariantItemModels(ModelBakery.java:169) ~[ModelBakery.class:?]
at net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoader.setupModelRegistry(ModelLoader.java:128) ~[ModelLoader.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.renderer.block.model.ModelManager.onResourceManagerReload(ModelManager.java:28) [ModelManager.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.resources.SimpleReloadableResourceManager.registerReloadListener(SimpleReloadableResourceManager.java:120) [simpleReloadableResourceManager.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.Minecraft.startGame(Minecraft.java:535) [Minecraft.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.Minecraft.run(Minecraft.java:381) [Minecraft.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.main.Main.main(Main.java:118) [Main.class:?]
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at net.minecraft.launchwrapper.Launch.launch(Launch.java:135) [launchwrapper-1.12.jar:?]
at net.minecraft.launchwrapper.Launch.main(Launch.java:28) [launchwrapper-1.12.jar:?]
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at net.minecraftforge.gradle.GradleStartCommon.launch(GradleStartCommon.java:97) [start/:?]
at GradleStart.main(GradleStart.java:26) [start/:?]
Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: <modid here>:models/item/<meta_item here>.json
at net.minecraft.client.resources.FallbackResourceManager.getResource(FallbackResourceManager.java:68) ~[FallbackResourceManager.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.resources.SimpleReloadableResourceManager.getResource(SimpleReloadableResourceManager.java:64) ~[simpleReloadableResourceManager.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.renderer.block.model.ModelBakery.loadModel(ModelBakery.java:310) ~[ModelBakery.class:?]
at net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoader.access$1100(ModelLoader.java:99) ~[ModelLoader.class:?]
at net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoader$VanillaLoader.loadModel(ModelLoader.java:844) ~[ModelLoader$VanillaLoader.class:?]
at net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoaderRegistry.getModel(ModelLoaderRegistry.java:130) ~[ModelLoaderRegistry.class:?]
... 20 more
[16:14:11] [Client thread/ERROR] [FML]: Exception loading model for variant <modid here>:<meta_item here>#inventory for item "<modid here>:<meta_item here>", blockstate location exception: 
net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoaderRegistry$LoaderException: Exception loading model <modid here>:<meta_item here>#inventory with loader VariantLoader.INSTANCE, skipping
at net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoaderRegistry.getModel(ModelLoaderRegistry.java:134) ~[ModelLoaderRegistry.class:?]
at net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoader.loadItemModels(ModelLoader.java:306) ~[ModelLoader.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.renderer.block.model.ModelBakery.loadVariantItemModels(ModelBakery.java:169) ~[ModelBakery.class:?]
at net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoader.setupModelRegistry(ModelLoader.java:128) ~[ModelLoader.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.renderer.block.model.ModelManager.onResourceManagerReload(ModelManager.java:28) [ModelManager.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.resources.SimpleReloadableResourceManager.registerReloadListener(SimpleReloadableResourceManager.java:120) [simpleReloadableResourceManager.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.Minecraft.startGame(Minecraft.java:535) [Minecraft.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.Minecraft.run(Minecraft.java:381) [Minecraft.class:?]
at net.minecraft.client.main.Main.main(Main.java:118) [Main.class:?]
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at net.minecraft.launchwrapper.Launch.launch(Launch.java:135) [launchwrapper-1.12.jar:?]
at net.minecraft.launchwrapper.Launch.main(Launch.java:28) [launchwrapper-1.12.jar:?]
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_91]
at net.minecraftforge.gradle.GradleStartCommon.launch(GradleStartCommon.java:97) [start/:?]
at GradleStart.main(GradleStart.java:26) [start/:?]
Caused by: net.minecraft.client.renderer.block.model.ModelBlockDefinition$MissingVariantException
at net.minecraft.client.renderer.block.model.ModelBlockDefinition.getVariant(ModelBlockDefinition.java:75) ~[ModelBlockDefinition.class:?]
at net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoader$VariantLoader.loadModel(ModelLoader.java:1159) ~[ModelLoader$VariantLoader.class:?]
at net.minecraftforge.client.model.ModelLoaderRegistry.getModel(ModelLoaderRegistry.java:130) ~[ModelLoaderRegistry.class:?]
... 20 more

The game also crashes with a 1 device not closed error at seemingly random periods of time while fighting the Ender Dragon.

I figured it out! For anyone that had the same problem, I simply put the "ModelLoader.setCustomModelResourceLocation()" in the init() the first time around, moving it to the preinit() fixed my problem!