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I'm trying to model a bow and would like to create the upper limb in 2D, then extrude it to make it 3D and lastly mirror it to make a bottom limb. Can I rotationally extrude the outer edges around the inside edges of the bow in Blender? In other words, can I extrude along and around a local edge instead of global?

I'd like to rotate the outside edges locally around the selected edges in order to make the object 3 dimensional. is this possible?

Reference image:enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Could you illustrate what you mean with an example image? $\endgroup$ – Duarte Farrajota Ramos♦ Apr 24 '16 at 0:50
  • $\begingroup$ sorry about that. uploaded it now. $\endgroup$ – Pharros Apr 24 '16 at 0:57
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I am not sure I understand what you mean, is this the shape you wish to achieve?

Bow

The way I see it you can do it in several distinct ways

  1. Either extrude your whole shape at once and bevel the outer edges of the result afterwards. You can use a mirror modifier in two axis so you only have to model half of it.

  2. Draw the quarter circle shape section as a mesh and extrude it up step by step along those selected edges. You may use snapping to guide your shape all the way up, or

  3. Draw both your section (semi circle) and the path (curved shape) of the bow as a bezier curve, use the section as a bevel object on the bow shape bezier curve. Use the curve radius on a per vertex basis to control the thickness of the bow along the path. (Option I used in the image above and bellow)

Bow Full

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  • $\begingroup$ Yes I am planning to achieve a shape such as that, except not as pristine and curvy. It's still the same idea though. The bevel step wouldn't work for my case since I need the edges to be distinct in Edit mode rather than the mesh being quasi-edged. The last two I am not familiar with. I am still pretty new to Blender. I'll let you know if I figure things out haha. $\endgroup$ – Pharros Apr 24 '16 at 4:15
  • $\begingroup$ I decided to just go with a cylinder and extrude it upwards along the 2D as a reference. If there is a better of doing that within my limits please explain how so. Sorry I'm still pretty new so I don't know how to exactly do some of the things you mentioned previously. $\endgroup$ – Pharros Apr 24 '16 at 4:30
  • $\begingroup$ That's probably the safest bet right now. I am sure you'll slowly learn more and eventually get comfortable with the other suggestions. Feel free to post other questions if you find any more specific problems. $\endgroup$ – Duarte Farrajota Ramos♦ Apr 24 '16 at 4:59

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