How to model a shape with +90° angles (Office chair legs)

[Briac Denoual]

Hi ! I’m a beginner and i’m training to modeling my own stuff. I’m stuck on modeling my office chair i don’t know how to proceed for legs :/

I’ve tried to create a plane with miroring and extrude edges along my ref but i don’t understand how to do when the shape is turning back (+90°) and my topo looks like… hum… this…

[Dwayne Savage]

Create a cylinder with 10 vertices. Then select 2 faces skip 2 face. Keep doing that until you have the 5 legs(10 faces). Then extrude along normals(alt+e). If you want higher detail to start out with them use 20 vertices and select 4 skip 4. That should get you started. 

[Dwayne Savage]

I’m literally working on the same thing. I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to do the seat and back with a nice curve. Any suggestions would be great. 

[Martin Bergwerf]

Hi Briac

I’d use an Array Modifier for the legs, instead of a Mirror Modifier, something like this:

Rotate the Empty 72° around the Z-Axis.

[Briac Denoual]

I’m gonna try this, thanks !

[Dwayne Savage]

Hey @spikeyxxx I tried that and I couldn’t figure out how to get the round centerpiece afterwards. How would you go about that with the array modifier, because array is a lot easier to make adjustments to the legs for different styles. 

[Martin Bergwerf]

Hi Dwayne @dillenbata3 ,

Start more or less like you did, but only Extrude one leg and Delete most of the Circle:

[Martin Bergwerf]

Oh, I see I miscounted in the above Screenshot, you can Delete everything apart from this:

Make sure to enable ‘Merge’ and ‘First and Last Copies’ in the Array Modifier. (or Add a Weld Modifier after the Array).

[Dwayne Savage]

@spikeyxxx you are a master. So simple and so elegant. It never even crossed my mind to build and then delete. Rigging is so much easier. For the seat and back curve which would be better proportional editing or lattice? I’m going to try lattice since I’m more familiar with it, because of rigging. 

[Omar Domenech]

You can always trace the shape vertex by vertex. It’s common when you’re starting to treat it almost like a vector software when you place one vertex at a time until you have the shape cut out and then you start to fill in with faces. That’s a simplistic approach, the one Martin gave you is the Modeling Neo sight when you start to see the wireframes in all the objects around you in real life and you start wondering an approach on how it would be the most efficient way to model this or that. That comes with experience and when you’re hooked on modeling. 

[Martin Bergwerf]

Hey Dwayne @dillenbata3 ,

There are so many ways to make nice curved shapes like the chair seats. What Omar describes is great, but Lattices work well too and are less destructive than Vertex by Vertex or Proportional Editing. If you’d be feeling very adventurous, you could dip your toes in the ocean of NURBS Surfaces (not something I’d recommend for you at this time, especially not for something like office chair seats, but it’s a possibility).

I usually just look at the reference and then decide on the way to model it (and sometimes get stuck along the way and have to start over with a different method, but this happens less with experience; you get some kind of intuition for choosing the best way…)

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