How to extrude along curved path?

Question

Trying to recreate a miniature machine gun in Blender (2.9) - I'm just starting out, so thinking up clever solutions is hit and miss still.

I've used 'paths' to get the initial shape of the magasine and extruded those after converting to meshes, but now I need to make these sections along the sides as per the 2nd image.

I tried insetting faces on the main face, and that kind of worked (see 3rd image), but required quite a few steps of cleaning edges afterwards, and it seems to be a silly way of working.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

To add to Akai's answer, you could also:

• Create the profile, shift it from its origin:

• Give it the Screw modifier and choose the right parameters:

Or

• Create your profile, shift it from its origin, put the 3D cursor at the center with ShiftC, in the tools panel select the Spin tool:

• Move the tool gizmo and tweak the parameters in the Operator box so that the axis and angle are correct:

Or

• Create the profile, duplicate it:

• Press CtrlE > Bridge Edge Loop:

• Tweak the parameters in the Operator box:

Answer 2

1st create a simple object and apply Scale with Ctrl+A.

Now goto the "Modifier Tab" and add "Array Modifier" and put X and Y to 0 and Z to something like 5 and don't apply it now.

2nd add a bezier curve and shape it the way you want it.

Now, select the cube object and again go to modifiers Tab and add "Curve Modifier" and select the created curve. Then you'll have something like this.

You can increase the number in "Array Modifier" and just align it with the curve.

Remember that. Array Modifier should be at the 1st place and followed by curve modifier.