This is the second video of modeling and now with the image in place, we can start creating the form of the femur. Typically, you'd want to start with a mesh or shape that closely resembles what you're about to model. In this case, we're going to start with the body and this looks cylinder like in shape. So let's add a cylinder. As you can see, the mesh is too big, so you can reduce the size in the pop-up window to closely resemble the diameter of the reference image. Without a reference image, you would go for a size that closest resembles its real life size if you're going for a realistic scene. I have also reduced the vertices or the segment stone. So to keep things simple for now as we can add more later. Since it is at the center, let's keep it there and move to fold the reference image by hitting G then X and since it's not perfectly straight, hit R to rotate to the position you're happy with. Now we have to align the edges with the reference image. So, hit S then X to scale only in the x axes if you're in front view as the body of the femur is not perfectly rounded. And now it has aligned with the middle of our reference image. Now we're going to extrude the top face up and the bottom one down to follow the form of the femur. Scaling and moving the newly extruded face to follow the reference image and to create the body, simple as that. To see the reference image behind you, go into wireframe mode. I have gone into front mode to make sure as I'm extruding the face, it has been kept straight and even. Select the face on top, hit E to extrude, move with your mouse and left-click to confirm the new position. Go into solid mode if you find this is easier to see your mesh, but you can switch between the two to make sure you're following the reference image and repeat that step again. We want to extrude the new face by using E. But as you can see, the mesh is not really following the lines of the reference image for the body. So we want to increase the size so it lines up. Hit S then X to scale only in the x axes. And then repeat these steps to the following body upwards, extruding the face, scaling or moving it to follow the reference image you think looks best. You may feel proportional editing will help smoothen the movement of your vertices to make for a smoother mesh. Then repeat on the bottom face, extruding, moving or scaling in the x axes to create the body. Create your mesh of the body to roughly where I have or around about where the thinner part of the femur ends. We're extruding little by little, otherwise the mesh would be too straight and we want to follow the natural curvature of the bone the best we can. Now we have a simple body of the femur created from a cylinder mesh. And if we look at the back view, you can see that the posterior reference image is not exactly aligned. So if you want to move that over to fit it best, you can do that like I have. There is not going to be an exact match up with this sort of model but keeps your mind focused that there is more than just a front aspect of the model to think about. Now we can move on to the trickier parts, the proximal and distal ends. By looking at the reference image, you can start to have a think about what basic shapes of meshes could we use to create the shape of the femur. We could keep extruding the cylinder but due to the lack of vertices on the end faces, it might get a little bit trickier to manipulate the mesh. We could try it for the proximal femur but if you take a look at the head, a sphere for this part I think would be perfect. At this early stage of practicing your skills, it is good to experiment as it is a different way of thinking. Think what simple shapes can make up this complex shape at this stage. There isn't a wrong way to do this. So, let's add a sphere mesh. Again, it may be way too big for you. I'm going to reduce the segments to 15 as I believe that's what we made our cylinder just to keep things consistent. Move up to the right place compared to the reference image but the head of the femur isn't exactly a sphere. It's more of a dome-like shape and then we have the neck that extends down from it. So what we can do is remove the bottom section of the mesh, remember to go into wireframe mode when selecting the faces you want to remove. It is best to be in edit mode for this as well. Hit delete to delete the faces. Now we can rotate it round so the bottom is facing down the length of where the neck would be. Since we have removed part of the mesh and we go into solid mode, we can see that there is a gap here, the mesh is open. So you can insert a face between these edges around the bottom. Select all the edges and then shortcut F and as you can see, we now have a face at the bottom. Now we're going to extrude our new face downwards to curve out the rest of the head and then create the neck. Extrude and then scale the new face down or up to follow the reference image. Use proportional editing and play with the scroll wheel too as you move your mouse to find the best fit. We are not scaling in one particular axis for this part as we want the narrow parts of the neck to be scaled down in all directions, so it's not flat. Now the head is roughly done. And now we're extruding to create the neck. We're going to extrude straight down the line. You could extrude little by little but we've done that with the body. So let's see this in a different way. Extrude down, left-click to roughly where the neck would end and move the face a little bit over. By adding Loop Cuts, we can manipulate the curvature of the neck by scaling these new edges down or up like we did with the head. So, I have created a loop cut in the head as well. And now I'm going to do the same for the neck. By adding Loop Cuts, we can manipulate the curvature of the neck by scaling the new edges down or up. I've put in another one for the head and I'm going to do the same for the neck as well. I've created Loop Cuts along the neck part of the mesh, scaling down which will bring in the mesh at the parts it needs to be thinner. The new Loop Cuts can also be moved as well as scales. Whatever you think looks best or what you need to do in order to follow a reference image. As I am manipulating these new edges, you can see that the mesh is following the curvature of our reference image. For finer details, you could individually move vertices as well. Since we scaled in all axes, we have the narrow parts of the neck, but overall it looks quite thick for what it would naturally be. So I'm going to select this face here. If I want to make it narrower, therefore I need to scale in the y direction. Hit S, then Y, move inwards to make the neck thinner, with proportional editing on. To create the rest of the proximal femur, we can extrude the face of the cylinder up as before. Scaling, moving and rotating these faces to follow the reference image. If you find the head and neck mesh distracting, you can hide them for a moment as we do this. I have personally extruded the face four more times and rotated the last couple to follow the angle of the reference image. Now we have the basic shape, we can create Loop Cuts to round out the mesh. Add a Loop Cut and then hit S to increase its size to widen out the mesh. If I need to scale any existing edges, just select them all in a loop and scale appropriately. By using Loop Cuts, we have basically created new edges and by scaling them up, we have followed the roundness of the top bit of the femur. But as you can see, the last face we extruded is rather flat whereas the femur would curve right. So what we could do is extrude the face, but scale it down with proportional editing for our render appearance. By doing this, the mesh looks a bit more softer and a lot more organic and more bone-like. Now we've done a good bit of work. So it's a good time to save, do that if you've not already done so. And as you can see, the form is taking shape nicely. Now for the distal end, this has a very organic shape to it. The condyles at the bottom are round and on the posterior view, you have a structure known as epicondyles which project out. So, a mesh that closely resembles this best is the box mesh but altered, let's show you. Add a box mesh and reduce it to the size that closely resembles your reference image either with the pop-up window or by using scale. Move it down to the point of the reference image we'll be modeling off. To manipulate the mesh, we are going to need more faces and vertices to play with. One feature to allow us to do this is subdivide. In edit mode, right-click to bring up the window and go down to subdivide. As you can see, new faces, edges and vertices have been created. In the pop-up window, you can alter how many times you want to subdivide the mesh. Basically, how many times do you want to cut up the mesh? I'm going to set the number to three subdivisions. Basically, the more subdivisions, the more you'll have to work with. You can also see in the pop-up window the function smoothness which means how rounded are these new cuts in the mesh? If you play with the drag bar and increase the smoothness, these new edges will become rounder which is ideal for our rounded distal femur and overall organic shapes. I have set the value to roughly zero point six but you choose a value you think looks best. Going back to the front view, this smoothening has resulted in an overall expansion of the mesh so we can scale down the mesh to best fit the reference image again. I'm going to flatten the top bit of the mesh by selecting the very top vertice here and moving downwards with proportional editing on. Now, the top part of the mesh is relatively flattened. I'm going to select the bottom vertices to bring them up. Now, with proportional editing on, we can move the outer edges inwards to best mirror the reference image. Now we need to create the form of the condyles, these protuberances or the sticky out bits. We can move the vertices best in front view by moving them by hitting G and aligning them with the reference image. Do this on both sides. Then to create a groove in the front, I am selecting these front vertices here and moving them upwards. To create these bumps, we could bring out the faces or we could bring in the middle edges that separates them. The ones I'm selecting we can move forward relative to the model to create these bumps. Play around to see what you think looks best to create these epicondyles. So have a go at that, see what you think looks best. Try and move some faces, just have a little bit of an experiment. See what you think looks best to create these epicondyles. And as we zoom out, you can see there's a gap. So what we can do is extrude the bottom face of the cylinder downwards to close this gap and increasing the scale appropriately so now it looks like one continuous structure. If you notice any overlapping that doesn't look quite right, you can have a little edit of the vertices and move them about so that doesn't happen. Now, we've got a basic mesh for the femur. Well done, save your work and the next video, we will continue finishing the model and show what can be done to make it more realistic. Thank you for watching.
