1. Starting scene
We start with a typical Blender scene, with the cube that we will end up transforming into a spectacular sports vehicle. We have the screens in 4 views. You can easily do it by pressing the ‘Quad view’ button that appears in the options panel (N key) > Display.
In that same section of the panel, we add background images by checking the ‘Background Images’ box and adding a front, back and left side view.
2. Modelling the profile
We extend the left view by pressing the Space key, to start with the model profile.
3. We remove leftover faces
In edit mode (Tab key) and face selection (button in the lower menu), we select all faces except the first one on our side on the X-axis.
4. Vertex Extrusion
We are going to build the mesh using a technique that allows modeling very comfortably in Blender; the extrusion of vertices. Simply select the vertex to be extruded, press the E key and voilà! Note, you must ensure consistency in the polygons to avoid n-gons (polygons with more than 4 vertices).
5. Merging vertices
To close the polygons and build faces, we must merge vertices. We have two options:
- Select the vertices to merge and in the tool panel (T key), in the section ‘Remove’, select ‘Merge’ and the type of fusion.
- With the ‘Merge automatically’ button activated (3rd button from the right in the lower menu) and the ‘Attach during transformations’ button (the magnet) activated with the Vertices option, we simply drag the vertex to merge and move it until it merges with the destination.
6. Creating faces
With the vertices already merged, press the F key to create faces.
7. Cutting faces
We begin to subdivide the mesh using the knife tool by pressing the K key and moving the cursor to the height of the wheel, on the two edges to be cut and press Enter to finish the cut.
8. Sliding vertices
To slide vertices to the correct position along an edge, press Shift + V.
9. Modifying segments
In addition to manually moving each vertex, we can apply transformations to groups of vertices, selecting them with the Ctrl key, and moving them (G key), scaling them (S key) or rotating them (R key). We can restrict the transformations to an axis by pressing the X, Y or Z key.
10. Face extrusion
To create the interior of the concavity where the tire goes, we select the vertices that surround that area and press the E key to extrude, move the cursor down and press the S key to reduce the scale.
Conclusion
On this image, we can see the finished profile of the car. If you need to, you can recalculate the normal ones so that they are facing the positive X-axis (towards you). To do this, with all the mesh selected, we go to Mesh> Normal> Recalculate Outside.
This tutorial addressed the first 10 stages to create the profile of the car, explaining basic concepts, such as modelling with reference images in the scene, and more advanced ones, such as modelling by extrusion and fusion of vertices.
In the next tutorial, we will continue from this last step and we will finish the body of the car.
En avant !
