This is a small preview of a simple blender scene on Blender 2.55.

See it full-size (HD) and other work from me at DeviantArt.

Blender is on it’s way out of Beta. Release 2.55 comes with many fixes and many API changes. Old blender 2.5x scripts will have to be rewritten (you were warned!), and the API still isn’t final.

I just wish they would make NODF work already… Fingers crossed for 2.56.

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Required tools: Blender 2.54

Heart Tutorial by Sergio Moura is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at liquidblue.com.br.

This is a step-by-step quick-and-simple tutorial on how to model a simple, low-poly heart in blender

This tutorial was made using the official 2.54 blender build on the blender site. It can be achieved in the 2.49 version of blender, keeping in mind that commands are located in different places in the user interface.

Start with the default scene, and let’s work with the default cube.

Change into edit mode (TAB key) and subdivide our cube (press SPACE key and type in “Subdivide”, then select the “subdivide” item from the search results)

Our cube is now subdivided

Be sure the “Limit selection to visible” is OFF, as we need to see the vertices that are currently ocluded by faces.

Deselect all vertices (A KEY toggles between “select all” and “select none”), as we’re going to remove some extra vertices.

Select those vertices as we’re going to delete them (to select a vertice, right click on it. To select more than one, hold SHIFT while selecting).

Delete the selected vertices by pressing the X KEY and selecting “Vertices” in the menu.

Once the vertices are out of our way, let’s mirror our current vertices. Add the modifier “Mirror” from the “Modifiers” section in the buttons window.

Once our modifier is created, select “X” and “Z” Axis. You’ll see a full cube again.

Now, let’s work on the top view (NUMPAD 7 KEY).
Make sure the view is in “Orthogonal” and not “Perspective” view. The NUMPAD 5 KEY toggles between one and the other.

Grab the bottom-left vertices (note, there are TWO of them) and move them so they look like the next image.
TIP: Use the box tool (B KEY) to select a group of vertices

Cut the left-side of the mesh like shown in the picture.
Use the “Loop Cut” tool (CTRL+R or search for “Loop Cut” on the commands (Space-bar menu)).
Note: When using CTRL+R, the selected tool is “Loop Cut and Slide”, wich lets the user position the precise point of the cut. As we’re going to cut right in the middle of the vertices, you can use the “Loop Cut and Slide” tool, when you’re presented with the interface to move the cut position, just type in “0″ (zero), and the cut will be stuck right in the middle. — You can play around with the values. “1″ is one far end, “-1″ is the other.

Now, Grab the top-right vertice (of our current editable mesh, not the mirror one), and drag it down, like shown in the picture.
Do the same for the top-left, but don’t bring it as down.

Our heart is too fat. Go to the front view (NUMPAD 1 KEY), select the top vertices (use the Box tool to select them), and bring them down until you’re comfortable with the width.

Now, deselect all vertices and select only the ones in the middle of the heart, like shown in the figure. We’ll work with them next.

We’ll work with the 3D Cursor now. If you haven’t messed around with it, it should be in the origin (0,0,0). If you have changed or want to make sure, open the transformation window (N KEY) and check/set the “3D Cursor location” in the position 0, 0, 0.
After that, change the “Pivot Point” to “3D Cursor” like shown in the image.

Now, lets scale our selected vertices to make our heart looks smooth. Press “S KEY” to scale, then set our scaling to “1.1″ (just type in). You can play around with the values if you want.

Almost done. Create a new modifier called “Subdivision Surface”.

Here’s our subdivided heart. Set the subdivisions to “2″ in view and “5″ in render.

We still can see all the squares in our heart. Open the tools window (the one in the right, it should already be open. if not, press the T KEY to toggle it) and press the “Smooth” button under “Shading”.

Select the left-most vertices and pull them a little to the center of the heart to make it look a little better. How much to pull is up to you.

And we’re done!

Enjoy!