Lesson 4: Advanced Editing - The Handle

Getting a Handle on Things

TIP:

To make working on single object easier and faster, we can view it by itself locally without having to see all our other objects. To do this, tab to Object Mode and select the object (in our case, the cup) and from the View menu select Local View (or simply press Numpad/). This can save a lot of redraw time, particularly in a scene with many objects.

Now that we have our basic cup shape, we need to add a handle. To do this, we start by cutting a few edge loops. Don't get scared, it's easy. To cut and edge loop, press Ctrl + 'r' and a pink loop will appear in the center of the face(s) you are cutting. In our case we want to make sure we are cutting the loops in the cylinder that represents that outer wall of the cup. Drag the pink loop to where you want it and click the left mouse button to drop it there. We need to cut four edge loops from which we can extrude our handle. Try and make your cup model look like this (I have highlighted the edge loops I just cut for clarity):

TIP:

If you make a mistake and need to delete an edge loop (or decide later that it's not needed) simply select the edge loop (Shift + Alt and select) and press 'x' (delete). Select "Edge Loop" from the pop-up menu.

To make the extrusion of the handle easier, we will rotate our cup slightly to align it with the standard front view. Numpad7 to get to the top view and press 'a' to select all vertices. Press 'r' to rotate and carefully rotate the cup until the four edges on the quadrants line up with the grid lines. From the top, it looks like this:

Now Numpad1 to the front view and press 'a' to de-select all vertices. At the bottom of the editing window, select the 'Occlude background geometry' button and the 'Face select mode' button:

Now select the two closest faces formed by your recently cut edges so we can extrude them...

Switch to the side view (Numpad3) and press 'e' to extrude. Start with a slight extrusion to begin the handle...

Now we need to change back to vertice edit mode. Clear the 'Occlude background geometry' button and select the 'Vertex select mode' button:

Now press 'a' to deselect all vertices and ' b' to window select the two visible vertices on the top handle 'nub' you just made. Press 'g' and drag them up slightly then 'r' and rotate them so they look something like this:

Do the same for the bottom two visible vertices. Keep extruding, dragging and rotating until the handle is nearly complete. Here it is...

Delete the two faces at the ends of your extrusion. The best way to do this is the rotate the view until you can see the faces, click the 'Face edit mode' button, select the faces and press delete. Select Faces from the pop-up menu. Now switch to 'Edge select mode'. Select two edges that you want to join and press 'f' to make a face between them...

Do the same for all four faces to complete the handle...

To add some weight to the places where the handle meets the cup, grab the vertices that form the inside of the handle (Top and bottom) and drag them up and down so your handle looks like this:

Press Numpad/ to switch to global view and Numpad7 to go to top view. Now move and rotate your cup on the desktop so it is in approximately in this position, partially in the light and partially out:

In our next lesson, we will make the cup smooth and apply materials to it. Press Numpad/ to return to global view and press F12 to render. Here is what our scene should look like: