As said in the title I have been trying to put togther a model based on the following image



I am finding it very hard to make a decent looking and not to over complex model. As you can hopefully see I'm looking to take a sphere and punch circular holes in it.

So far I have tried a nurbs curve projected onto a nurbs sphere, which looked good but didnt convert nicely as there were far too many unconnected CV's and isoparms.

I have also tried taking a boolean difference approach using a poly sphere and poly cylinder to 'punch' out the holes. This kinda worked ok, although there was a ton of work connecting the new vertices. In the end it didnt look that hot and I kind of gave up on the idea.


I would really like advice on the easiest way to do this as I have a nifty idea for a model based on this design, thank you!