#5 - Modelling - Practise Wheel

As I have never done modelling before, I used the provided exercises to begin learning how. The first model I tried to make was a basic pirate style steering wheel. To begin with, I used a polygon pipe and flattened it to create a ring. I then added a cylinder, and re-shaped it to be very thin and long using the scaling tool. I moved this to intersect the pipe, with most of the cylinder sticking out of one side and the rest meeting the middle of the ring. I duplicated this and mirrored the cylinder to the opposite side of the ring, then repeated this for the other six handles, rotating them accordingly. I then put a sphere in the center of the ring, hiding the ends of the eight handles and making it look sturdier.

For a first ever model, this didn't turn out too badly, although it's not the most detailed steering wheel ever made. I originally tried using the doughnut shaped primitive for the wheel shape, but it was too thick and I could not figure out how to make it thinner with all the different edges on it. It turns out you just have to change the radius, but the pipe cylinder worked out fine anyway.

If I were to attempt this task again, presumably with much more knowledge seeing as this is my first ever model, I would be sure to use the polygon torus primitive for the main wheel body, and this time I would shrink the radius of the torus to make it thin, but also keep its roundness around the outer edges. The pipe I used is just flat, with flat edges around the side. The actual handles around the wheel look a bit thin, so I would probably extrude them outwards more the further from the wheel you get, to give them a more interesting design and feel. I did have a bit of difficulty at first trying to line up these handles, as I was zoomed in so far that my mouse couldn't drag them a small enough distance using the move tool, but I did find a way to manually input the distance I wanted them moved so they were lined up properly in the end.

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