I guess we can try a competition or two to further gauge interest. I'll start one up on Monday.

Boo, have any ideas for a topic?

@d12dozr said:

Its a joke...

I hate when I fall for those . . .

@hellnbak said:

I'd be in if there could be a "slo-mo modeling contest". Couple of weeks might do it.

Not sure if I understand you correctly . . .

You mean simply a "modeling contest" as opposed to a "speed modeling contest." One with no time limits?

Or are you talking about a speed modeling competition with a longer period for submitting entries?

I've been thinking the same thing! Last week, I offered to start one one up (over in the Discussions forum) if there is enough interest.

Head over, vote, and add any comments you guys have.

Well, it's been a while since I've been on these forums (with the exception of an occasional check-in). In fact, it's been a while since I've touched SketchUp! I wanted to push myself to get back into some recreational modeling and thought I could use a little motivation . . .

It's been almost a year (July 2012) since we have held a Speed Modeling Competition on these forums. I know there was very little participation toward the end, which (at least in part) lead to it's suspension. Now I was never faithful in joining these competitions. I attempted probably a dozen, and submitted a total of maybe 4 entries. However, I would love to see these friendly competitions start up again, and I guess the best way to do that is to show some initiative.

By the way, for those of you who don't know, the Speed Modeling Competitions are just what they're called. You have 30 minutes to model anything you want within a certain category, then everyone votes for the best model. The winner then picks the category or topic for the next competition.

So if there is enough interest, I would be willing to commit to running the SMC's for at least a couple of months. (I am entering my senior year in high school so I don't know about committing for a long period of time, maybe I could start by taking on 3 months.) I could set up the competitions and the voting, all that I would need is for a moderator to sticky each competition for everyone. I would also be willing to stretch myself to enter as many competitions as possible, even if my entries are ahem well . . .

Let me know what you guys honestly think. I have created a poll to help gauge interest. Would you be up for this? Any suggestions or comments are always helpful!

Thanks for your time!

Alright, cool! And I think I'll try some lettering on the side, too. Thanks for the suggestion.

@d12dozr said:

Yep, its in the free version too. It was introduced with the Solid Tools, the rest of which are PRO only, but Outer Shell is available to everybody.

I also thought this was pro only! Awesome!

Thanks for the tips guys!

How does this look?

lego_duplo_for_print.skp

Would anyone with any experience in 3D printing be able to take a quick look at this model and let me know if it will be alright to print? I am planning on printing with Sculpteo and just wanted to make sure everything turns out all right.

Are the letters on the top going to be a problem? If so, I can remove them. Everything else I believe is above the 1mm minimum wall thickness. I'm just not sure about the faces, "solidness", etc. The model was not designed with 3D printing in mind so I'm just not sure.

I really have no experience with something like this so any help would be awesome!

P.S. I am printing with Sculpteo's keychain-maker tool which offers a free plastic model with the cost of shipping (6 USD). I am planning on using it as an example of 3D modeling in a speech. It doesn't need to hold up too well, but I hope it does.

2x4 Lego at standard Duplo size.

Pilou,

Some of your images are broken. Great tutorial though, I am going to try it on a model of mine that I've wanted to try something similar on for a while but never got through the SketchyPhysicsness of it.

Loving the tutorials, Kerky! Goes to show how just a plain model (with a few tweaks) can look great without a bunch of rendering or post-processing.

Keep up the good work! Hope to see more from you.

It's on this page, about halfway down the first post.

Luigi, I think I understand your question correctly. If not, please correct me.

What you'll want to take advantage of, in this instance, is SketchUp's inferencing or "snapping" features.

You are going to want to first select the box that you want to move. Then, with the move tool selected, hover your mouse over the corner of the box "a" (as shown in my image) and click when it says, "endpoint in group." Then, move the box to the corner of box "c" that you want the selected corner on box "a" to move to. Again, the mouse will "snap" to the desired corner, again displaying "endpoint in group."

I probably made it sound a lot more confusing and difficult than it really is, but once you get the hang of it, it can be your best friend. Just like groups. Good job on discovering those. As you see, groups make everything a whole lot easier.

If you can learn to get around SketchUp's little quirks, you will find how easy and intuitive it is to use.

Edit: Gah! Peter beat me to the punch. Not to mention explained it way more simply than I did.

Peter, not much workflow here, I'm afraid.

I ended up simply drawing some bezier curves (doubling to make a ring-structure), push-pulling, and applying a slight bevel with Fredo's Roundcorner. Nothing fancy at all. In fact, I will probably go back and work on it some more, specifically the very simplistic, round "fasteners."

Here's a couple screen-grabs with some quick color thrown on. Hopefully, this project will make it to the Gallery some day. I have a hard time seeing most projects through to completion.

Rich's, Pen Tool might do what you want. I'm thinking the 'Guide Draw' tool might be what you need. I haven't tried but you might try making the desired curve, exploding that curve, and then tracing over the individual segments with the 'Guide Draw' tool, deleting the original curves.

Interesting approach to your problem. I'm interested to see how it turns out.

Thanks TIG, that looks like it will help a lot! I'll see what I can come up with it.

Hmm. I checked out the thread. I might be able to use it for what I want but not sure that's what it's inteded for.

Although not really what I want, this is the closest I could find. A sort of frame around an electronic screen. But not nearly as decorative, more like the image in my first post.

Uh, I hope you meant TIG's, not mine.

Although maybe for some inspiration . . .

The molding gave me some interesting ideas, Rich. Some of the types listed look like I'm getting closer. I'll try some more web searches.

Is TIG's ClineStyle the one you were thinking about?

Edit: Ah, this one? I'll check it out.

Thanks, mitcorb! At least I have something to go off of now.

Tried searching for "gold bezel" "bezel pattern" "decorative bezel" and "electronics bezel" among others without finding anything relevant.

I am trying to find some reference images for ideas for my model. The problem is, I am having a hard time describing what I want to be able to search for anything. I want a type of gold trim that would go around a small screen. The closest thing I could find was this image but it's still not quite what I'm looking for.

What I'm looking for is sort of the top (circled) gold segment. Except it would be mirrored and go around a rectangle (think phone screen).

All I'm looking for are some more ideas either in the form of actual objects, patterns, etc. I tried some Google searches but as I can't really describe it, it's hard to find anything.

Any ideas on what I would call this or what to search for? Did anyone even understand me? (Hope I was at least semi-clear.)