Creating the Body

The following information is a single lesson in a larger Tinkercad project. Check out this and more projects on Tinkercad.

Return to Previous Lesson: Introduction

Lesson Overview:

Now we're going to make an alien body

Instructions

1. Place a cylinder and a half sphere on the worklane.

2. Move the half sphere up on the Z axis until it is higher than the cylinder. Rotate the half sphere 22.5 degrees counter clockwise.

3. Position the camera so you can see the bottom of the half sphere. Press "W" to switch to the Workplane Tool and select the bottom plane of the half sphere.

4. Place a box near the base of the half sphere.

5. With the box selected, choose "Hole" in the Inspector window. Next, Scale the box using a black handle on the Y axis. Move the back edge 8mm

6. In this step, we will remove the top of the cylinder so the half sphere can rest on the cylinder without the cylinder going through. Align the box to the cylinder, making sure the box stays at it's current height.

7. Group the box and cylinder.

8. Next, align the half sphere to the cylinder. Same as the box, make sure it's height doesn't change

9. Select the half sphere and press "F" to focus the camera on it. Position the camera to get a closer look where the cylinder and sphere meet. The half sphere will need to be scaled a little bit to match the edge of the cylinder. Something that will help with these small adjustments is Snap Grid. Snap Grid is at the bottom right corner of the screen. It starts out as 1. These means that the smallest distance an object can move is 1mm. If we want to move or scale something that is less than 1mm, Snap Grid will need to be changed. Click on the snap grid and select .25. With the workplane aligned to the top edge of the cylinder, use the black handles to scale the half sphere until it is close to the edge of the cylinder.

Now we are going to cut out a mouth for the alien.

Instructions

1. Place a pyramid on the workplane. Rotate the pyramid 180 degrees so that it points down.

2. Align the pyramid to the cylinder, having the cylinder remain in place. Turn the pyramid into a hole.

3. Scale and position the pyramid until the dark shadow is in the shape of a mouth. The shape to look for is highlighted in yellow in the image below.

4. Group the pyramid and cylinder together. Now would be a good time to decide on the color you want your alien to be.

In this step you will make eyes for the alien.

Instructions

1. Place a sphere on the workplane and scale it equally (holding shift) to about 8mm and change it's color to white.

2. Duplicate and move the sphere at the same time. Holding ALT will create a duplicate of the object to move. Holding SHIFT will help the sphere stick to the y axis. Use SHIFT+ALT to make a duplicate and move it away from the original. Make the new sphere black. This is called the pupil of the eye.

3. Using the black handle, Scale the pupil down on the Y axis.

4. Now scale the pupil down equally on all axis to about 6mm.

5. Move the pupil so that it touches the white sphere. Hold SHIFT so that it stays on the Y axis.

6. Place a half sphere on the workplane. This will be the eye lid. Scale the eye lid down to 5mm.

7. Rotate the eye lid 22.5 degrees counter clockwise on the X axis.
8. Align the eye lid to the white sphere of the eye.

9. Move the eye lid up until it sits on top of the eye.

10. Select all three objects that make up the eye. Hold ALT+ SHIFT to copy and move along the X axis.

11. Select all objects that make up the two eyes. Group them together. This will change the color of all the objects. To switch back to their original colors, go to Inspector window>Color> and check the box next to Multicolor.

12. Align the eyes to the half sphere of the body. Adjust their height so they rest on the half sphere.

13. Select all of the objects on the workplane and group them together.

In this step, we will add detail to the alien's mouth.

Instructions

1. Place a paraboloid on the workplane. Mirror or Rotate the paraboloid 180 degrees so that it points down toward the workplane. Turn it into a Hole to be able to see through it.

2. Align the paraboloid to the body of the alien.

3. Rotate the Paraboloid 22.5 degrees on the X axis counter clockwise.

4. Switch to the Workplane Tool and select to top of the paraboloid.

5. Using the black handles, scale the paraboloid so that it fits inside the alien's mouth. Make sure to keep the paraboloid aligned to the body.

6. Change the color of the paraboloid to black.

7. Next we will add a tooth. Place a box with the grid still aligned to the paraboloid.

8. Scale the box down.

9. Align the tooth to the body of the alien.

10. Change the color of the tooth to white.

In the next lesson you will learn to add arms.

Next Lesson: Adding Arms