Modeling the armrests

The last pieces of the chair we need to make are the armrests. We're mostly going to use box modeling, but we'll introduce one more very useful modifier before we're done.

We're going to start with a plane, and cut in the details we need to match the curvature of the armrests:

1. Go to the Top view.
2. Press the Shift + S hotkey to bring up the Snap pie menu.
3. Choose Cursor to World Origin.
4. Find the Add menu at the top of the 3D Viewport or press the Shift + A hotkey.
5. Choose Mesh | Plane.
6. Rename the plane Chair_Armrests.
7. Tab into Edit Mode.
8. Press the 1 key on the home row to switch to vertex select mode.
9. Grab the top-right corner vertex of the plane and move it up to the top-right corner of the armrest in the reference image.

10. Move the other three vertices into their respective corners as well:

Now, we've got the major form in place. It doesn't look like much right now, but up next, we will add more edge loops and refine the shape:

1. Select the Loop Cut tool from the Toolbar.
2. Hover over the midsection of the armrest to highlight a horizontal line.
3. Click to cut a new edge loop into the plane. The two new vertices that resulted from the Loop Cut will automatically be selected.
4. Move the two vertices to the right to align them to the midsection of the armrest in the reference image.
5. If needed, scale the two vertices outward to increase the distance between them so they align with the edge of the armrest in the reference image:

There we go! Already, we're seeing a huge improvement; the Loop Cut tool is still active, so we can easily repeat these steps to add more detail to the armrest model. Add one new horizontal cut to the upper and lower sections, and then move those Loop Cuts into position:

Great! As you can see, adding more edge loops allows us to represent a more rounded form. Repeat this once more to add in an extra loop between each of the existing loops for a total of four new loops. Once that's done, let's add two vertical cuts to the armrest to round out the top and bottom as well:

1. Go to the tool settings at the top of the screen.
2. Set Number of Cuts to 2.
3. Hover over one of the horizontal edges of the armrest to highlight a vertical cut.
4. Click to insert two new vertical edge loops.
5. All of the new vertices will be selected; scale them up along the y-axis to round out the shape.
6. Click the Select Box tool from the Toolbar:

Excellent. Now that we have the shape from the Top view, we need to check the alignment from the side view, and then give it some thickness:

1. Go to the right-side view.
2. Press the A hotkey to select all of the vertices.
3. Grab them and move them along the z-axis up to the topmost edge of the armrest in the reference image.

4. Either use the Extrude Region tool from the Toolbar or press the E hotkey to extrude the selection.
5. Move the extrusion downward to align with the underside of the armrest:

Good. The upper part is finished, so now let's make the support bar underneath:

1. Rotate the Viewport to a perspective view.
2. Switch to Face Select mode.

3. Select the middlemost faces on the underside of the armrest (refer to the following screenshot):

Now that we have our selection, we can extrude it to form the support bar of the armrest:

1. Return to the side view.
2. Extrude the selected faces down to match the reference image.
3. Go to the Select menu at the top of the 3D Viewport.
4. Choose Select More/Less | More.
5. Grab and move the faces to the left along the y-axis so that the front most edge aligns with the reference image:

Good. Now let's make the vertical part of the support bar:

1. Select the right-most face on the underside of the extruded region.
2. Extrude the face down to meet the bulbous part of the support bar in the reference image.
3. Extrude once more down to the bottom of the bulbous part of the support bar.
4. Insert an edge loop in the middle of the bulbous part of the support bar.
5. Scale up the new edge loop to approximately match the width of the bulbous part of the support bar.
6. Insert one new edge loop above and one new edge loop below the edge loop that we just finished scaling.
7. Select just the two new edge loops.
8. Scale the two new edge loops up to round out this section of the support bar (refer to the following screenshot):

Excellent! We're almost done! We just need the bar that connects the bulbous section to the main part of the chair:

1. Rotate the Viewport so that we can see the inside faces of the bulbous section of the support bar.
2. Switch to Face Select mode.

3. Select the four faces closest to the main section of the chair (refer to the following screenshot):

Now, we just need to extrude them. We are going to pull them inside the main part of the chair so they look like they are attached to it:

1. Press the E hotkey to extrude the selected faces.
2. Press the X hotkey to override the default axis lock and switch to being locked to the global x-axis.
3. Pull the extrusion inward until it completely clips through the main section of the chair.
4. Left-click to confirm the extrusion.
5. Press the Delete key to bring up the Delete menu.
6. Choose Faces to get rid of the unneeded internal faces.

Wonderful! We're done with the arm! Now, we just need one for the other side. We could use the destructive "Symmetrize" operation that we used earlier in this chapter, but let's use a non-destructive modifier instead:

1. Tab back into Object Mode.
2. Go to the Modifiers tab in the Properties panel.
3. Click Add Modifier.
4. Choose Mirror from the Generate section.

The mirror modifier is perhaps the most popular modifier in Blender; it's useful for doing anything symmetrical, which is most things!

Excellent, we're done! Now, we have a super cozy-looking sci-fi chair:

It looks great. If you had trouble with any part of this chapter, you can have a look at the TimeMachine_FinishedChair.blend file provided to compare your work. When you're confident with the quality of your chair, then you're ready to move on to the next chapter.