When you open Wings3D, you will see an interface like the first image.

There is a grid in the main window; this can be treated like the “floor” of the virtual space. Each square of the grid is one “unit” long, which for the sake of this Instructable, we will consider to be equal to one millimeter.

When you right-click in the modeling area, you will see a pop-up menu like the fourth image.

Here you can see all the primitives, or shapes, that wings allows you to start with. Let’s start with a cube.

Now, orbit around the cube by clicking the middle mouse button (or alt+click on a Mac) in the empty space around the cube, and then dragging the mouse around. click again using the same button to exit the view/orbit mode. This function will be very useful as you model, since you’ll need to change your point of view frequently. A few other tricks to changing the view are to hit “o” which toggles the perpective or orthogonal mode, and the “x” “y” or “z” keys which align the view with these axes, respectively (so that you can view the side, top, or front views of your model.

You will notice at the top of the screen, there are four icons of a cube (third image). One cube has two vertices highlighted in red, the second cube has an edge highlighted, the third cube has a highlighted face, and the fourth cube is all red. These icons indicated which “selection mode” you are in. If the first three icons are boxed, that means you will be able to select vertices, edges, or faces. If only one of the boxes is highlighted, you can only select that type of geometry (for example, vertices). The fourth box, when selected, limits the selection to bodies, or entire parts.

Hover over the different parts of the cube you just created. You'll see different parts glow green as your cursor moves over them. If you click on a vertex, the selection mode goes to "vertex" and the vertex you selected glows red. Hit the spacebar to return the selection mode to "vertex + edge + face" and deselect anything you have selected. Try this with edges and faces too.

More things to try:

- select a vertex and right click, and select "move" from the popup window. Notice that You can see the different options for moving a vertex; you can move it in any of the axial directions, normal to the surface, or freehand. This functions similarly for vertex, edge, face, or body mode. While you are moving, try hitting "Tab", a window will pop up so you can specify exactly how much you want to move a feature. This "Tab" option works for most of the geometry tools.

-select a face and click "rotate". Do the same for the other selection modes. Just like with "move", you can rotate things about the x,y,z axes, or about the normal.

-select an edge, or face, and click "scale". This scales the size of the given feature.

-select a face and click "extrude". This is a useful tool for adding features to a 3D model.

-select a face and click "inset".

-select two vertices not connected by an edge, and click "connect" or type "c". Try the same with two edge.

-select a vertex or edge and hit the "Delete" key.

Trying all these functions and experimenting with the ones I have not mentioned will help you get familiar with the Wings3D software. Take your time and challenge yourself to create various models, like human faces, spaceships, etc. It doesn't necessarily have to be something you want to 3D print!