There are quite a few ways of making the perforated sphere; this tries to pick one that has a smaller number of necessary steps.. some of these are optional. The topology isn't the best, but it doesn't affect the result.

- For a smooth result, you may want to delete pole vertices, and fill the hole with CtrlF > Grid fill; maybe GG slide some latitudes to make faces squarer. Keep an intact, highly subdivided version of the sphere handy, for moves like this. You can always Shrinkwrap, and apply the modifier, to that, to restore the spherical shape.
- I (With I for 'Individual',)Inset the faces that will be holes
- Face Menu > Subdivide the new faces.

- Now, if you hit F, the edges will be dissolved, but the extra vertices remain
- You can use the shipped add-on Loop Tools > Circle, to make them round, with Fit Inside, if you want your holes to be scaled to the faces, or to a Radius, if you want them all the same size.
- Even then, you might want to adjust the sizes. Set your Transform Orientation to 'Normal', and your Pivot to 'Individual Origins', and SShiftZ to change their size, or simply repeat the Loop-Tools operation, with a radius set.
ShiftG Select Similar, CtrlShift Numpad + select next in sequence, and CtrlNumpad + / Numpad -, expand / contract selection, will help you pick out the faces for treatment. Sometimes you have to H hide sections of the mesh you're not interested in.

- You can then I inset your holes a fraction before deleting them,
- and give everything a Solidify and Subdiv. modifier.
The surface seems to be of reasonable quality.. with other approaches, you have always got the intact sphere available to Shrinkwrap to, or to use Data Transfer to transfer Normals to the final result.
The 'Spike' version starts the same way..

- But instead of deleting the holes, you delete the sphere. Give the Object 2 material slots. As you inset and extrude the various sections, assign the faces to the appropriate slots as you go along, while the faces are still selected by the operations.
- AltE Extrude the faces inward, along their normals.
- The third frame show the rings of faces selected, ready to be assigned the second material slot.
