In a new scene drag a sphere with the default settings on to the scene - to set the default settings : right click on the primitives:sphere and then click default !
If you now left click the sphere you should see at the bottom of the screen you should see the dimensions - these should be 1.000 x 1.000 x 1.000 - but quite often on my machine they come out slightly smaller at 0.990 x 1.000 x 0.990 (this could cause some problems so I suggest that every time you add a primitive that you check this - and if needs be click the "Scale object to snap to interval" button (see picture 1) which will take it to the nearest 0.1 interval (remember this 0.1 was set in options ?) or, in this case, 1.000 x x1.000 x 1.000.
Now we need to cut it in half.....
Add a cube primitive (click and drag) and position as shown picture 2 - so it is half way over the sphere - remember you are working in 3d so make sure it is right in all direction (up/down, left/right, forwards/backwards). With the cube selected (highlighted) click on the "object subtraction" button and then the sphere - this will cut the sphere in half - see picture 3.
If you zoom into the half sphere you will see some extra faces that we don’t want. We could remove these by face/line/point selecting and trimming them or we could............
Lets undo the last couple of actions so we are back to the sphere and cube on screen. Select the cube and when it is highlighted right click toy bring up the context menu and select "scale - by amount" - enter 1.2 into each box (x,y,z) and click OK. After the cube is scaled we need to move it so it once again covers only half of the sphere. Again select the cube, click "object subtraction" button and then the sphere - this will cut the sphere in half but without the extra faces (hopefully).
Change to wire frame view and zoom into the half sphere - you will see that we do in fact have an extra section all around the cut away section. Select the half sphere and then goto "weld to range" and enter 0.02 - this welds all point within range to each other, very useful !(picture 4)
I suggest at this point you add the object to your library - right click the object and choose add to library :) half spheres are very useful.
Now we repeat the above to create a quarter sphere (add cube, scale cube, position cube, select cube, subtract from sphere). Clean up if needed (weld to range) and add quarter sphere to library.
Now we should have just a quarter sphere sat in our world - picture 5.
Select the quarter sphere and copy ( Edit-copy or ctrl+c ) then paste. Select the second quarter and rotate and position so you end up with picture 6. Select one of the quarters and object merge the other (click one of the quarters, click object merge button and click other quarter)
Now we have one object we can bridge the centre section. Face select the inside face of one of the quarters - rotate the camera so you can see the other inside face and then ctrl+select it. Now click on the bridge icon - pictures 7 and 8 (model in 3dc format HERE)
Ok so we are winning - now for the beading (?) around the foot. In the first published version of the model this was done by extruding the sole and then bulging it, now I think this is a better method.......
Add a torus to the scene and double click it to bring up its properties and make the inner radius 80 (%). Then scale it (right click, scale and scale to) 1.2 x 0.1 x 1.2 (did you notice that the size was 0.990 and not 1.000 ?)
Cut the torus in half using the same method already used to cut up the sphere (remember to scale the cube above 1.2 so it fully overlaps the torus)
Add to library :)
Copy, rotate and position as shown in picture 9.
Again merge the two halves and bridge them together (both sides !).
There we have the basic shapes for the feet.
Paint them and we are almost finished.
Put them into the same group and give them names.
Alt+click them to select the group and ctrl+copy then ctrl+v to paste - now we have two feet ! And are ready for part 2 - Legs !
Save here - have a break - play with the kids - talk to the wife - make a cup of tea !!!!!! (omit wife/kids as needed)
See you in part 2.....
model in 3d fomat HERE
In the "finished" render I have Smoothed the objects and applied povray textures.
