If you are trying to extrude faces you can press alt+e, and then extrude along normals. In that menu you also have other options for especial extrude operations.
I'm trying to make this lower plate to the record player in my image. In Maya it would just be a simple extrusion. In Blender however, extrusions appear to only go along a global axis even when I set it to normal. how can I create this bottom base with a proper extrude. I know the answer is something simple and was…