I am attempting to render an item when a player renders.  I assume the best route of doing so would be to use the RenderPlayerEvent event?  If not, where would be recommended?  I would rather not create a custom player model if possible.

Depending on where you want to render the item on the player you may want to look at LayerRenderer.

 

You can find examples of it in the vanilla code.

 

You can register is during client pre-init like this:

    LayerThePlayer layer = new LayerThePlayer();
    ((RenderPlayer)Minecraft.getMinecraft().getRenderManager().getSkinMap().get("default")).addLayer(layer);
    ((RenderPlayer)Minecraft.getMinecraft().getRenderManager().getSkinMap().get("slim")).addLayer(layer);

 

I had assumed this would render directly onto the player.  I was thinking something like above the head.  Would this be capable of doing so?