05 - Reference Polygonal and Modification

To start this tutorial I had to split my screen into three sections. I put the main screen as a side view looking at the right side by pressing “Numpad_6”, then I added a menu and selected background images, clicked add image, set it to right view and added the side view reference image.

For the screen in the top right I set it as a front view. Then put the front reference image as the background image. For the screen in the bottom left I changed it to UV/Image editor and inserted the prospective reference image. I then made sure all the images were the same size by creating a cube to use as a example of the size. I went in to wire frame by pressing “Z” so I could see the image behind the cube, then I scaled the cube down to fit the image.

After checking the size of the object I changed the top right image to fit. I did this by resizing the image using the menu on the side of that screen.

I got rid of the side menus by pressing “N” , deleted the cube I made and went back to solid view in both windows by pressing “Z”. Then I inserted a cylinder mesh and rotated it ninety degrees, I did this by pressing “R” then “X” and typed “90” on the keyboard then pressed “Enter”.

I then scaled it to fit the reference image. Then I had to split the cylinder using “Ctrl+R” twice so I could make the white band from the reference image. To make the white band I selected all the faces I just made by holding “Alt” and selected on of the lines in the section I wanted to select all the faces in. Then I extruded it and scaled it down on the only on the x and z axis by pressing “S” then “Shift+Y”.

After making the main cylinder I named it. I did this by going to outliner on the menu on the right, right clicked on the cylinder object name and selected rename, and named it MainCylinder.

I then made the threads for the four rods around the main cylinder. I did this by pressing “Ctrl+R” and splitting the rod on each line on the reference picture, and scaling down every other one. I then duplicated the rods in edit mode to make them all one object, by pressing “Tab” then
  by pressing “A” to select all then pressing “Shift+D” to duplicate.

Then I renamed the cylinders I just finished to Rods

I then made a mesh of a cube to start on making the blocks on either side or the object. I scaled the cube down to size and started making the edges of the cube. I did this by pressing “Ctrl+R” split it twice and double clicked then scaled it pressing “S” then “X” so the splits would be in line with the in dents in the edges.

To flatten the corners I selected the vertices. I did this by “B” selecting all the vertices I needed in the front view screen and scaled it in. After doing this I changed the name of the cube to block.

To finish the blocks I had to create holes in them. I did this by moving the block out and using the boolean modifier. In the boolean setting I chose difference and selected the rods object, and to make the holes I moved the block back and clicked apply. 

Then I made the big hole by doing the exact same thing.

 I moved the block back into the right place and duplicated it so I had the exact same block for the other side.

 Next I had to make the bolts. To do this I created the mesh of a circle and pressed “T” to get the tools menu up. In the tools menu I changed the vertices option to 6 which turned the circle into the same shape as the bolts. After making it the right shape I moved the circle up and rotated it by pressing “R”, “X” then typing 90 in on the keyboard.

I scaled it down to the right size and put the bolt in the right place. I the pressed “E” and extruded it, then extruded it again but this time I scaled it down a bit.

 To finish the bolts I closed the tools menu then extruded it one more time, scaled it down then pressed “Alt+M” and selected merge at centre. I changed the name of the circle to bolt, created a hole in it using the boolean modifier then duplicated the bolt three times and put the duplicated blots in the right places.

I then joined all the bolts objects together so I could move them all at the same time. I then duplicated them and put them on the other side.

 Before I added colour I made sure that all the surfaces were smooth, I did this by getting the tools menu on again, clicking on the cylinder  and changing the shading to smooth. I did this on the rods as well.

 Before I started colouring the modal I changed the render option from blender render to cycles render. I then went on the render options on the menu to the right and changed the device to GPU Compute.

 The first thing I coloured was the main cylinder. I did this by adding a material that I made blue. Next I coloured the blocks to look like steel, I did this by adding a grey material and adding gloss to it, I also added 0.2 roughness. Next I put another but slightly different steel look on the bolts but instead of 0.2 roughness I put 0.1 and also made the shade of grey darker. Next I did the rods using the same material as I did for the bolts. Finally I made the white band on the main cylinder, I did this by tabbing into edit mode and selecting all the faces I wanted to put the material on by holding “Alt” then adding a white material with gloss and 0.5 roughness, then I had to assign it to the faces.

 After adding the colours I made a plane mesh to use as like a stage for the object. Then I deleted the light that was already there and made another plane and turned it into a light. I did this by scaling it up a little bit and give it a little bit of a angle, renamed it lamp, then made a new material and called that lamp as well, added emission the material.

 Finally I set up my render by moving the camera around.

For this second render I pulled the modal apart.