Introduction to Modeling in Blender

Prefer watching the video? Here is a video version of "Introduction to Modeling in Blender". (coming soon)

Discuss this article on Reddit. (coming soon)

BlenderNation submission. (coming soon)

BlenderArtists Thread. (coming soon)

You can support my effort by purchasing the Blender assets shown in this article (and video) from my Patreon.

I also offer free and paid add-ons for Blender. You can find them in my Gumroad page.

I also offer private tutoring on any topic you encounter on this blog. Please contact me to ask for rates. I offer affordable remote one-to-one learning packages depending on where you live.

In this article, we will learn basics of modeling in Blender. Along the way, you will learn how to work comfortably with Blender and its interface. We will model the Deck of Chukudu. Final scene that you will achieve is shown on Fig. 1.

We will also learn how to effectively use reference images to help you achieve your goals in creating the artwork that you dream of.

In later tutorials, we will learn how to texture, light and render your scenes in Blender.

In this series of tutorials/articles, we will be modeling and texturing a Chukudu, and render under different light and scene setups. I chose this model because a Chukudu is a simple wooden scooter with very low amount of parts. Each Chukudu is also a unique piece of personal craftsmanship. This flexibility also means we don't need the strict precision typically required for more complex subjects like architectural models.

Modeling a Chukudu will give us a good foundational knowledge of Blender.

Let's get started.

Blender Information

This article uses Blender 4.2.8: Download link to latest Blender 4.2.x. Supported until July 2026.

In the previous blog post, we talked about how to run Blender efficiently on old hardware. Check it out.

Collect Reference Images

Remember that the following advice for the entirety of your 2D/3D creation career: You MUST use reference images.

You know this cliché image of a painter using his finger to look at the muse s/he is drawing? They use their finger or pencil as a sighting tool. This way, they can measure the distances, sizes and perspective of their objects and reflect this on their canvas.

You will often see painters looking at their subject almost every 3-4 seconds. That's because unless you are a gifted person, or if you have been practicing the same drawing the hundredth time, you cannot memorize your subject entirely. You need to keep looking at your references and make constant observation.

The same goes for digital art. In Blender, we will always use reference images. Especially during modeling phase.

Finding a solution to organize your Refernece Images

Well, how do we do it? What we need is a place where we can collect all our reference images. This way we can take a general look at our images. We can zoom into any of the images and look into details and so on.

For example, we can use Blender itself to do this. I have a folder where I have bunch of images of Chukudus. You can collect your own reference images from the internet. Or you can support me on my Patreon to get access to all the content I show in my blog posts and videos.

Once we have the reference images, we want to import these images to Blender. But don't worry about how to do that in Blender now, because in a moment I will show you a better way to organize your reference images.

In Fig. 4, you can see that I imported all the images to Blender viewport. This is just to show you how it would look like.

This sounds good at first, but actually this is not an optimal solution. For one thing, you will find it quite annoying to change your viewport perspective in Blender between your model and your collection of reference images. It would actually be better if they were on a separate window.

You can actually create a separated viewport window in Blender, so you only need to switch between the windows. However, if you want to zoom into your images, or pan around to look at different images, you have to use Blender's shortcuts. To pan in 3D viewport without loosing perspective, you need to hold SHIFT and hold drag MMB.

You also want to add text to take notes around your reference images as things get more complex. Although collecting your reference images right inside Blender is a solution by itself, there are actually software made specifically for that purpose.

One of the most famous of these software is called PureRef. If you visit their website, you will see why such a software is most neeed.

So PureRef it is? Well, personally I don't use it. I prefer the Image Reference Board from MyApps.

Why? First of all I wrote MyApps. I did it because PureRef is actually not Free Software. You can only use it for your use. If you want to use it in a commercial project, you are expected to buy a license. There is no guarantee that 'the personal use license' will remain free as well. One day the creator might make it that it costs money to buy it at all. So I don't want to rely on that software. I prefer FOSS (Free and Open Source Software). I could not find a good open source image reference software, so I wrote one.

Secondly, I had difficulties installing PureRef. It felt janky a bit. That's why I've built MyApps on the web. You don't need to install anything or create any account. Just visit MyApps and start using it. Once you connect to it, it works even if you are offline. It does not collect any data from you. What is on your computer stays on your computer.

Here is a quick comparison of PureRef and MyApps's Image Reference Board:

I am constantly improving MyApps. It is not just a Reference Board, but a collection of many apps. At least it is going to evolve into that. If you are also a programmer, you can help me contribute.

Let's place our reference images to MyApps

Let's head over to the MyApps website. When it opens, hit RMB on your mouse. Choose Application -> Image Reference Board.

You should now see a small box in your screen. This is your Image Reference Board. Now we want to maximize it in the screen. When you hold Left Mouse Button (LMB) on the board and move your mouse, you can drag it around the screen. Place it around the left top corner. Now place your mouse on the right bottom corner of the board. Hold it and scale it to cover large part of your screen. Now our Image Reference Board is large and spacious.

We now want to activate the board so we can use it. Double click LMB on it to activate. You should now see that it has a green border around it. It is now activated. To deactivate, you can click outside the Board app.

With the app activated, we can now start to drag and drop the reference images to the Board.

Please see the videos on either side of the article to see all the steps involved. You can maximize the videos. There is no audio.

Adding images is very simple. Just open your folder of images. Then select and image and drop it on the reference board while the board is activated. You can also select all the images and drag & drop them to the Image Reference App, and it will layout them for you. Watch the video on the right to see how. You can also drag and drop random images from the web into this app (i.e. from google images). But it won't work for some websites, because I could not find any meaningful data in the drag event data that comes from those websites. If you are a programmer, you can help me improve MyApps.

Great! Now you have your reference images in place. We will use this board as a general place to stay inspired. We will also use Blender itself to add reference images, where necessary, to help us with precise modeling. This way, we will never be lost in the complicated process of 3D modeling.

Let's Get Started With Blender 3D

You are about to begin a magical process called 3D modeling. This process is complicated, but extremely rewarding. Once you learn the basics, the ability to create a whole digital world will be within your reach. There are different ways to model different things. But it all boils down to a few basic principles.

In my tutorials, I prefer teaching things by doing them. So there will be minimal boring theory or more just doing things. Along the way, you will develop a certain level of practical skill. Upon that practice, you will be able to build up theory as you need.

Let's get started with Blender.

Basics:

Select an object with LMB click. To look around in the 3D viewport, hold click MMB and move your mouse. Congratulations, the basics are out of the way.

Importing and adjusting the reference image

In order to model a Chukudu as "perfectly" as possible, we need, guess what, good reference pictures. In this context, it is less about "inspiration" and more about "getting proportions right". In this case, we want pictures of our model from exactly the sides, front, back, top and bottom. At least in the ideal case. There are not many pictures of Chukudu's online. But I managed to find one that is sufficiently from the side. You have seen this picture in the beginning of the post already. Since Chukudu's are fairly simple machines (get the pun, physics majors?), a single image from the side will do just fine for us.

We will now import this image into Blender as a reference for our modeling. We will do the following steps:

1. Import the reference image
2. Fix its rotation
3. Move it "back" a little bit such that it says behind our model.

Import Reference Image

Press SHIFT + A to open the Add menu and add an Image > Reference Image.

You will see that the image is added. It is facing towards us and it seems that it is cutting the default cube in the middle.

Fix its rotation

Blender added the reference image facing towards us. It also added the image exactly at the location of the cursor. Cursor is an important thing in Blender. It is basically a small tool to define a location. For example, whenever you add something new in Blender, it gets created exactly where the cursor is. You can also move the cursor around. You can move things to the Cursor. You get the idea.

Now we want to reset the rotation of the reference image. Press ALT + R reset its Rotation. Now it will be facing flat. (Fig. 11)

Now let's rotate it horizontally. Hit R and then press X and then press 90 in numbers. You must hit these keys one by one, not all at the same time. You will see that the reference image has now rotated 90 degrees along the "red axis" (Fig. 14). This axis is called the "X" axis in Blender. Hit Enter to confirm the rotation. If you mess up, you can always press alt + R to reset the rotation again and start over.

We need to execute one more rotation. This time "vertical" rotation. We want to rotate it 90 degrees along Z axis. Hit R and then hit z and then hit 90 in numbers. Finally hit Enter to confirm this rotation.

Perfect, we have now rotated the reference image correctly (Fig. 16). It is now facing correctly towards "left-right" direction. If you observe the reference image itself, the front of the Chukudu is aligned in the Green Y axis.

These directions are crucial to understand what is happening in Blender. So I will show you what we achieved so far.

Hit Numpad 3 button on your keyboard. If you don't have a Numpad section , then click on the X handle on the 3D viewport axis. You will find this 3D viewport axis on the top right corner of your viewport. (Fig. 12)

You should now be looking at your viewport scene from right side. Observe the text on top right corner of the viewport. It will say "Right Orthographic" (Fig. 13).

As you can observe in Figure 15, we are looking at our scene from the right angle, I even draw an amazing rendition of a beautiful car to show you the example. If that car was actually in our 3D scene, we would be seeing the car from the right side (given that the car is aligned to our scene).

Just like that car, we rotated the reference image of the Chukudu to match the directions of our scene. This will help us align things better along the way and keep track of things. Chukudu is a fairly simple thing to model. However for more complex models, such alignment initially will save you headache later, and you will thank yourself.

Move it back a little bit

We will continue to use the keyboard shortcuts to move the image back. Just make sure that the Chukudu is selected by choosing it with lmb click.

Now let's move it back by 2 meters along the red axis. First hit G and then X and then - (minus symbol) and then 2 in numbers.

You can see now that the reference image is moved behind the cube (fig. 17).

With that, we can start modeling!

Let's Start Modeling in Blender

We will start by modeling the deck. The Chukudu deck is basically a thick wooden piece with cuts on either ends to make space for the wheels. It is also thinner towards the front, thicker towards the end. We will model these features.

Hit Numpad 3 or the X in the 3D Viewport Axis to look at the scene from "right" angle.

Select the Deafult Cube.

Transformation

While setting the reference image, you already learnt a little bit about Transformation operations in Blender. These are move, rotate, scale operations. We rotated and moved the reference image, so you already used those! There are shortcuts for each. With an object selected, you can hit once on your keyboard the G , R or S keys to respectively move, rotate or scale and object. Just hit one of these letters and move your mouse around. You will see that the object is moving, rotating or scaling with your mouse. If you want to confirm the transformation, just click lmb. If you want to cancel the transformation and revert the object back to its last position, click RMB. After hitting one of the transform keys, you can hit X, Y or Z in order to lock the transformation in either X, Y or Z axis (the red, green or blue axis).

After you hit one the Transform buttons (G, R or S), and then one the Axis buttons (X, Y, or Z), you can also enter a Numeric value, like 3, -4.2, etc., then the transform operation will move, rotate or scale the object according to this specific value. Using the mouse to move the objects around is a nice and easy method. But sometimes we want to have precision, where these numeric value come in handy.

Now with our default cube selected, let's hit G and then Z and move it down with our mouse. Do you see the orange dot in the center of the cube (Fig. 18)? We want it to be aligned with the deck of the Chukudu (rough alignment is more than enough).

Now let's scale it down a bit. Hit S and then Z and scale the cube down until it rougly aligns with Chukudu's deck.

Let's make the Deck long now. Hit S and then Y and move your mouse to extend it until it roughly aligns with reference image.

Finally, let's rotate the deck to align with the reference image. Hit R and then X to rotate the deck. Actually, we are looking "towards" the X direction. If you don't specify an axis during rotation, Blender rotate the objects perpendicular to your view angle. Since we are looking directly at the X axis, if you just hit R and start moving your mouse, you will notice that the object is already rotating in the direction that we want (that is, the X axis).

Fantastic, you are half way done to modeling the deck. At this point, if you want to make adjustments to the deck's proportions to match the reference image better, you can still do so. For this, we need to view our model a little better. Let's make some shading adjustments.

Shading Improvements

First, we want to improve our viewing of the scene. For example I want to make the object a bit transparent, so I can see the reference image behind it better. To do this, first toggle X-ray view by pressing alt + Z or the X-ray button on top-right of your viewport. Now all the objects in your scene will be conveniently transparent. This is not a final render setting. It is just for our viewing convenience.

I also want the color of the objects look more distinctive rather than boring gray. Let's apply a MatCap color.

Hit the little arrow down button on the right-most part of the shading options. Then choose MatCap. Finally, Hit the colored sphere. You will see bunch of options to choose from. I prefer the clay brown color. ( Fig. 23 )

As you can see now that the deck object is both transparent and has a nice distinctive reddish color. We can now easily distinguish it against the reference image in the background.

Make Small Adjustments to the Deck's size

We are now at a better position to make small adjustments to the deck. Let's zoom into its front part.

Zoom by rotating the MMB (basically "scroll action"). Then hold click SHIFT + Mouse Wheel (hold both) and move your mouse to shift (pan) your view point.

We now zoomed into the front part of the deck and realize that it is a little short compared to the reference image ( Fig. 25). We want to extend it along the Y axis further.

However we rotated the weird angle, and now if you hit S and then Y and try to scale it, you will see that it gets stretched along Y axis. We want to extend it along its own orientation. Luckly, Blender can calculate this. All we have to do is press Y twice. So basically hit S and then hit Y twice. You will see that the scaling line along the Y axis is now oriented perfectly with the deck's rotation. Now you can safely extend it to match the reference image.

While you move your mouse to extend it, you can also hold press SHIFT button to make the transformation more sensitive. Try it and you will see what I mean. It makes the transformation go slower, such that you can have finer control.

The front of the deck look also very thick compared to the reference image. Let's hit S and then Z twice to correctly scale down the deck until it has same thickness with the reference image. ( Fig. 27 ). If you look closely at the deck, you will notice that it is now a little bit off in terms of location. Now you can hit G and then Z twice to move it down a little bit such that it is really right on the reference image. Remember to hold press SHIFT to transform with more sensitivity.

At this point you can keep doing small adjustments yourself. Your attempts will yield different results. So now you should be brave and comfortable with the Grab (move), Rotate and Scale operation to make final adjustments.

Now let's address the elephant in the room. As we adjusted the front of the deck for the reference image, the middle and the rear part of the deck is now completely out of alignment. We cannot fix this with basic transformations. We must now being real modeling: Vertex manipulation.

Edit Mode

Edit mode is the single most important mode in Blender where you will spend most of your time when you are doing modeling. With the deck object selected, hit Tab key on your keyboard to switch to the Edit Mode. Alternatively, click the Object Mode button on the top-left corner of your viewport. A drop-down menu will open. You can see all the other modes in that menu. Choose Edit Mode.

You can now see all the individual vertices that make up the deck. You can choose individual vertices, edges or faces (or a mix of them) and transform them with the shortcuts you've already learnt ( G, R and S keys).

We want to choose all the 4 vertices at the rear end of the deck. Simply drag select with Left Mouse to draw a box . Make sure the box encapsulated the rear end of the deck, and only those vertices will be selected.

Click the Figure 29 to enlarge it. You will see the selection box in action. I have already selected the rear end vertices.

With the vertices selected, hit S and then Z twice to size up the vertices. I'll size them up roughly the same width as in the reference image. You can see in Figure 30 that I am enlarging it a bit larger than it is supposed to be according to the reference image. But hey, there is not really rules for a precise Chukudu. So we don't do that here. This is a tutorial where you can follow your heart's content.

Let's see where we are

Before we continue, let's take a look at the deck from a corner angle. Oh, it looks way wider than it is supposed to be! ( Figure 31 ) That's because earlier on, we scaled down what was a Cube. Since we scaled down from only one direction, now the other direction looks way wider.

Let's jump out of the Edit Mode by pressing Tab button. Now we are at Object Mode again. Let's also turn off the X-ray view because for this step it will make things more confusing (hit X-ray button on top-right or ALT + Z key combo).

Then we can hit S and then X and scale the deck down until it looks satisfactory to our eyes ( Fig. 32 ) . We don't really have a Chukudu image from exactly top angle. So we can't attempt to match the wideness to a reference image. But like I said, each Chukudu is very unique and this makes them a very good candidate for a Blender tutorial. Just follow your heart.

Detailing the Deck

If you've made this far, congratulate yourself. You've learnt about 40% of Blender. I am serious. You've learnt how to add objects, how to navigate in 3D scene, how to transform things (move, rotate and scale) and modeling by manipulating vertices (a.k.a polygonal modeling ).

Another 20% is really all about getting comfortable with what you've learnt so far. That would bring you to about 60%. I would say things like materials & texturing, lighting & rendering accounts for another 30%. Finally that last 10% is really all about practicising and learning other lesser used parts of Blender.

To consolidate our knowledge so far, we will continue to detail the deck model further. We will drill a hole in front of it for the steering column to fit. Then we will create a cut-out or a recessed slot at the rear end for the rear wheel to fit.

Let's get on with it.

Drilling a hole

To drill the hole, first we will create a circle and then use this circle to cut "a hole profile" on the deck. Hit SHIFT + A combo to open the add menu and choose Mesh -> Circle.

With the Circle added, do not click anywhere! You will notice that an "Add Circle" menu appeared at the bottom left corner of the viewport ( Fig. 33 ). We can use this menu to customize our newly created Circle. If you click anywhere, this menu will disappear. If that happens, just delete the Circle (hit X to delete something) and create a new one.

Expand 'Add Circle' menu. Change the Vertices count to 8. Now as you notice, the circle is no more a circle, but an 8-sided polygon (an octagon). Actually the previous version was also not a circle. It only had 32 sides. So it looked like a circle. The reason why we reduce the corner/side (vertices) count is simply because we don't need that many. Reducing the count size will help us make the modeling easier.

Now we want to bring the circle on the deck, exactly where we want the hole profile to be at.

I will hit Numpad 7 or the blue Z handle on the 3D viewport axis, in order to switch to 'top' view. Now I can conveniently move my circle "down" towards the tip of the deck. I can see that I need to move the circle on the green axis, which the Y axis ( Fig. 35 ). So I will hit G and then Y and then I will move my mouse until it is somewhere down there ( Fig. 36 ). The circle is also too big, so let's reduce its size.

Hit S and start sizing it down with your mouse. Make it small until it is somewhere within the boundaries of the deck. ( Fig. 37 )

Good. Let's hit Numpad 3 or X handle of the 3D viewport axis to switch to the Right view (Fig. 38). Now we can see it better where the circle should be at. Actually it is already at a good spot. You can see that it is more or less aligned with the steering column that goes through the deck.

Now we want to cut the hole through the deck. In order to get it right, we need two things to align:

• The circle should face exactly towards the deck. Otherwise the hole will be skewed.
• Our point of view should exactly face the deck (and hence the circle), otherwise the hole will be skewed.

Snapping

To align the circle on the deck, we will use Snapping, which is very important in Blender. Thanks to snapping, we can move and and align an object exactly at the surface, corner, middle or other defining features of another object. In order to achieve our goal, we need to change the settings of the Snapping tool first.

Look at the center top of your viewport. You will see a magnet icon ( Fig. 39 ) . Next to the magnet icon, you will see some sort of a ruler. Click that ruler. Now you can change the settings of the snapping tool. Choose Center as Snap Base, Face as a Snap Target and check Align Rotation to Target checkbox.

That's it. To activate Snapping, click the magnet icon. Now at every movement things will try to snap to each other. I personally don't like clicking Magnet button on and off. If you hold press CTRL on your keyboard while you move an object, the Snapping will be automatically turned on. I find that method more practical.

Go ahead and try, select the circle and move it around while you hold click the CTRL button.

So snapping works, but for some reason, it appears that the circle is not perfectly aligning on the top surface of the deck (Fig. 41), which is what we want. It aligns nicely if you try on the sides, but not on the top.

This is happening because we edited the Deck object in Edit Mode. When you edit an object in the Edit Mode, you make a deep change in its mathematical representation. This change is not immediately picked up by Blender, for various valid reasons. We need to tell Blender that this current form of the Deck should be accepted at the real form. Only then can Blender make good calculations for Snapping to work. I am oversimplifying things here a lot. But if you really want to understand what is happening under the hood, we need to talk about Graphics Programming, which is an advanced topic. So let's leave it at that for now.

To fix the issue, simply select the Deck, hit CTRL + A to open Apply menu, and select Apply Scale. Did you notice the deck changed colours a bit? This shows that the Normals are reversed. We need to make sure that the Normals are corrected. For this, go to Edit Mode by pressing TAB key on your keyboard. Make sure that every vertex of the Deck is select by pressing A. Then hit shift + N shortcut to Recalculate the Normals. Now if you exit the Edit Mode by pressing TAB, you should see that the color of the deck should go back to how it used to be so far.

Now also go ahead and try to snap the circle. Select the circle, hit G to start moving it, then hold press CTRL to activate snapping, and move the circle on the top surface of the Deck. You will see that it will snap perfectly (Fig. 42).

Circle is now aligned perfectly to the rotation of the deck. We should now align our point of view to the deck's top face. To do this, simply select the Deck and hit shift + NUMPAD 7 . This is different from the pure NUMPAD 7. Now we are not looking at our scene from the top, but we are looking at the Deck from the top.

Using the Knife Projection Tool

We are very close to drilling the hole.

Now with the Deck selected, go to Edit Mode by pressing TAB. Then hold CTRL and also left click on the circle to select it as well. If you did this correctly, the outline of the circle should be orange, because it is not active selection. Since the circle is a very thin object, it might be difficult to select it. In that case, use the outliner on top right corner of Blender. Simply hold CTRL and left click on the Circle in the Outliner to select it.

It is important to understand what happened right now: We first selected the Deck, and then switched to Edit Mode. While we are in the Edit Mode for the Deck object, we also selected the Circle, which itself was still in the Object mode. In order for the Knife Projection to work, objects must be selected in that manner. If you are afraid that you are getting this wrong, let me tell you the only two ways that you might be doing it wrong:

1. Selecting both objects together while in the Object mode, and then going into the Edit mode (wrong, because now Circle is also in Edit Mode).
2. Selecting first the Circle, going into Edit mode and then selecting the Deck (Active object will be the last selected object before going into the Edito Mode, which is Circle, which is wrong. We want the Deck to be the active object )

Great, with the Deck and the Circle correctly selected, go to menu Mesh -> Knife Project. A little menu will open on the bottom left the viewport. Open it and also check "Cut through".

Great job? Well not really. Do you that the two edges that leave the circle and go all the way to the tip of the deck? I marked the tip of these edges in blue ( Fig. 44). This is bad Topology. We want to a better job. Hit shift + Z to revert the changes. No complaining! Rever the changes now!

What we want to do is to encapsulate the circle topology on the deck between two edges. For this, we first need to add edges to the deck. With Deck selected and while being the Edit Mode, hit CTRL + R and gently move your mouse towards the "middle" of the Deck. You will notice a bright yellow edge (Fig. 45). This is called an Edge Loop. Click lmb on your mouse to confirm the Edge Loop. Now you can move your mouse around to move the edge loop around. I want you to bring it somewhere close to the middle of the circle.

Switch to the top view over the deck (SHIFT + NUMPAD 7) to adjust it further. If switching to the top view alignment for the deck behaves weirdly, first switch back to the Object mode, and then hit SHIFT + NUMPAD 7, and then it should work fine. Switch back to the Edit Mode to align the Edge Loop better (Fig. 46).

To align the Edge loop perfectly between the circle, you cannot use traditional G and a combination of X or Y axises to move the edge. This is because we want the edge to only move along the mesh (the deck) For that we have Edge Slide option (see Fig. 47 )

With the Edge Loop aligned to the middle of the Circle, hit CTrl + b to divide the edge loop into two seperate Edge Loop and move your mouse to add some distance between them. Make them comfortable large enough such that they encapsulate the circle. (Fig. 48). Hit left click to confirm this.

Great. With this important addition done, please go ahead and apply the Knife Projection again. Do you remember how? I won't explain again. At this point, doing it yourself (of course you can refer earlier to the article) will count as a real experience. You might run into small pitfalls. But I believe I explained everything as good as possible above. I cannot explain you every single mouse click, every single viewpoint change. So now navigating yourself will give you some real valuable knowledge that nobody can give you in a magic pill. This is experience.

With the knife tool applied, you should now see something similar to Fig. 49. Do you see how the lines coming out of the circle are stopped at the two edge loops that we added? This is better suited to make the topology better.

We want the surrounding area of the circle accomodate the circle shape: Do you see the two weirdly shaped faces, colored blue and red? This is a bad topology coming out of a circle shape. Somehow we need to make the circle continue in its shape, and seamlessly blend in to the 'boxy' shape of the rest of the deck.

We also want to create an actual hole, not just a circle shaped surface. We will now do these.

Let's switch to Face Select mode in Edit Mode (Fig. 50), on the top left of your viewport (or press 3 in number row, NOT in the numpad). Now you can select these weirdly shaped faces and delete them by pressing X to open the delete menu and select Face (Fig. 51). Now both faces around the circle should be deleted (Fig. 52).

Now I want you to add Edge Loops on the 4 faces that surround this circle, right in the middle of them. Do you remember how to add Edge Loops? I will only give you a pictures about where the edge loops should be at, and you can place them (Fig. 53, Fig. 54, Fig. 55, Fig. 56). Also switch back to Vertex Select mode in Edit mode, on the top left of your viewport (or press 1 in number row, NOT in numpad).

Now, let's remember: How many vertices the circle had? 8, if you remember, we manually set the vertices. Now how many vertices there are surrounding the circle right now, after we added four edge loops? Also 8! You know what this means? We can now "connect" the vertices on the circle with the vertices on the deck, and thus join them in a nice geometry (or topology, both terms work in this context).

We could now select two corresponding vertices and press F to Fill between. Every time a 4 verticed empty space appears, we could choose those 4 vertices and also press F to fill a face between them. We could do this for all 8 pairs of vertices to fill the geometry.

But don't do it yet! Read below, as there is a better way:

Since there are 8 vertices to connect to 8 other vertices, Blender can automatically do this for us. This is called "Bridge Edge Loop" and you can find it in the Edge -> Bridge Edge Loops menu (Fig. 57).

So now go ahead and select all the 8+8 = 16 vertices shows in Fig. 58

If you want to select those vertices by hand. But there is also an easy way to select such vertices that are on a "path". It is called "Edge Loop Select". As shown in Fig. 58, bring your mouse pointer exacty at the center of any two vertices of the first edge loop path (the "outer" 8 vertices). While your mouse pointer is there, hit combination of SHIFT + CTRL + LMB . You will see that the outer 8 vertices are now selected. Blender could automatically do this, because you have shown it the edge loop you wanted to select by placing your mouse on an edge of the Edge Loop.

Go ahead and select the vertices of the Circle the same way (by edge loop selecting, Fig. 59). When all the 16 vertices are selected, go ahead and click Edge -> Bridge Edge Loops options as shown in Fig. 57. You will see that the geometry is now filled beautifully (Fig. 60).

Before moving on, select the circle shapes face and delete it (face delete) (Fig. 61).

Now go below the Deck and select the other 2 weirdly shapes faces, plus the circle in the middle, and delete them all (face delete) (Fig. 62).

Select the circle shape that remained above the Deck. Now that we deleted the bottom part, I can even see the top from below (Fig. 63).

In the snap settings, change the Snap Target to Vertex and uncheck the 'Align Rotation to Target' option. (Fig. 64).

Now with your circle above the deck selected, hit E to extrude these vertices, then hit Z two times to lock the extrude direction on the Z-axis of the Decks orientation, and then hold press CTRL to activate snapping, and move your mouse over the one of the vertices of the bottom part of the Deck. (Fig. 65).

In this complex maneuver, you extended the circle above to the down part, in perfect alignment. Now you can select the outer rim (8 outer vertices) of the bottom part of the deck (together with extended circle part, of course), and hit Edge -> Bridge Edge Loops option again (Fig. 66) .

Congratulations. Switch back to Object Mode by pressing Tab and behold your creation: A perfect hole for the steering wheel column (Fig. 67).

You can delete the circle that we used for Knife Projection now. We don't need it anymore. Well we could have deleted it right after we used it for knife projection, but yeah. Sorry for all the screenshots that got contaminated by that circle. But you know what, it is good practice for you. When you deal with a complex scene in Blender, you will often have to navigate your objects and model them while your screen is full random edges going into all kinds of places. You can isolate object or even parts of objects by pressing the slash / key on your Numpad. This helps to some degree. But yeah, practicing these things are important in any case.

Creating the recessed slot at the rear end.

Creating the recessed end is much easier than creating the hole part. You have already learnt quite a bit about modeling. There is a chance that you might even create the shape yourself. There might be several ways to create that shape. I will show you one of them, which I believe is the simplest.

First let's bring our view to focus the rear end. Let's switch to Edit Mode again. Then, hit shift + Z to toggle X-ray view, so we can select all the vertices at the rear end. Now using box select, select all the vertices at the end.

Now press 'dot' . button at the Numpad. This will align your view to center the selected vertices. This button works for any selected thing in Blender. If you don't have a Numpad, you can click View -> Frame Selected as shown in Fig. 69

Now create an Edge Loop ( CTRL + R) in the middle of the Deck (Fig. 70), and bring the edge loop towards the end (Fig. 71).

Hit Numpad 3 or the X handle in 3D viewport navigation in order to view the model from Right angle. From this angle, you can adjust the edge loop more perfectly on where the end of the recessed slot should be according to the reference picture: With the newly added edge loop already selected, hit CTRL+E and select Edge Slide to adjust the edges according to the reference picture (Fig. 72)

Select the 3 vertices as shown in Fig. 73. Then delete them.

As shown in Fig. 74, hit CTRL+B to Bevel the selected edge. This one edge is now divided in to two, kind of. divide the rear face into 3 equal faces like this (rougly).

Select the 3 newly shaped faces and delete them (Fig. 75).

As you can see, the recessed slot is not created, but its sides are hollow (Fig. 76). We need to fill those hollow areas with faces.

Select four vertices on the right side of the rear recessed slot and hit F to fill them with a face (Fig. 77)

Do the same process for the middle face of the recessed slot (Fig. 78) and also for the left side (Fig. 79).

Final Words

Time to congratulate yourself. You've successfully finished modeling the deck of Chukudu.

If this was your first ever model in Blender, I am really excited for you. Just know that what you have done is not easy. I explained every single step as detailed as possible without being too theoretical and boring. However I want you to know that the things we did here were not beginner stuff. Usually beginners play with adding objects and navigating the viewport and call it a day. You, however, not only did that but also learnt a fair amount of modeling in Blender.

For the next articles and tutorials, I will assume that you already know the things explained in this article. If I tell you to, for example, Bevel an Edge or extrude a face along Y axis, I will assume that you already know which buttons to press.

Like always, in the video version of my articles, I will always show which buttons I am pressing. This way, you can always orient yourself back to the article by watching the video tutorial in parallel.

What is next?

I must admit that writing this article took me quite a while (whilst dealing with other life related stuff). I was expecting to finish explaining modeling entirety of Chukudu in one article. However by the time I was half way finished with the Deck, I realized that everything won't fit into a single article. So let's call this article "Chukudu Deck modeling" rather than "Chukudu Modeling". The whole thing must turn into a series otherwise I won't be able to get through this undertaking.

And yet I am haunted by the task ahead of me. I might not create an article for each piece of Chukudu. However I am more than willing to create a video tutorial for the rest of Chukudu. Creating a video is many folds easier than writing the article.

Personally I prefer article to video when it comes to learning. I believe there are a lot of people like me, this is why, for my content, I am trying to provide article AND a video. However, like I said, I might skip writing the article for the rest of the Chukudu model. I believe videos will suffice for the average learner. If you found this article helpful, I believe you are already equipped with basic knowledge of Blender to follow my videos seamlessly.

So yeah, let's see. Maybe I get a rush of motivation and continue to produce articles as well. Maybe I write article for other topics, i.e. an article for texturing, lighting etc.

For now, take care.