A new project

To increase my ability to use the adobe software I've set myself a challenge. I want to create a deck of cards based around discworld characters. This project is mainly to improve my illustrator skills but also just general practices. Here is Vetinari the Ace of Clubs from my deck. He's yet to be finished but I'm posting anyway to boost my own motivation.

Each character is broken down to a a maximum of three features. So Vetinari has his hair and his ring. Colour is going to be my greatest problem here as there are certain conventions that go with cards. I have yet to decide whether to change the names and icon's of suits to suit the discworld theme. Vetinari is going to have some grey added here and there and some additional texture around the hair to try and communicates individual hairs.

Here are two from the eye series I am doing. The Lady and The Bursar

Spitfire

Beginning of big things. I'm trying to build a spitfire airfix kit in Solidworks. I am limited in accuracy because it's next to impossible to accurately measure the components at my desk without breaking out the saw. This is the main body (still in progress) which in along with the wings is the hardest part to construct. The rest of the kit should be easy.

I've been quiet for a while so here's a desk

This post does what it says on the tin

Making a V12 from an incomplete tutorial is hard.

So yeah I found a V12 tutorial. It was hard to make the cylinders as there was a miscommunication which set me down the wrong path. So I fixed it as best I could and bunged it in to photoview.

Mini Panic room

Here are some renderings of a smaller panic room I made.

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More Portfolio Work

Here's some more of my portfolio this was work undertaken for TomTom these where my two concept submissions for the design week. The first survived till the last 27 of 150 or so, the second got to the last 14. Didn't win but still happy to have done as well as I did.

Don't Panic Update

Just some finished images

Don't Panic

The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy advises us 'Don't Panic'. This a room designed to aid this state of mind. This is a roughly 4m by 5m panic room. It designed to house 6 people for up to 3 days in relative comfort or 8 people a week in an unpleasant hell. The design is not mine some of thew smaller detailed parts are off grab cad as I have deadlines to meet. But anyway have shufti.

It's almost finished. But just thought I'd share.

Images of past projects.

Here are two pages from my current portfolio showcasing some of my Solidworks skills.

This was my first ever Solidworks project done mostly over a single weekend in a frenzy. I got an A for it so all's well that end's well.

Meet Twoo was a funny little Solidworks project to make as I hadn't really practiced with Solidworks enough and my surface modelling skills where employed for the first time to add the beak and wings (the grey oval on the side.) which was not as flat as you might think.

Third image from office project.

Office

Here's a second update on the office I'm making.

Office Visualisation

I was tasked by my company to produce a 3d visualization of an ongoing project. 

Here's the initial layout stage 1

Quick Update

So a quick update. I'm being asked to solid model a control room designed by my company as part of a project. As such that's going to take up most my time so you might not see anything on here for a little while.I'll try and update with pictures of my current project.

So here are some pictures of my car and motorbike for the mean time

Dalek's are easy

I was busy this morning so I spent the afternoon creating a Dalek head. The body will follow at some point but that's going to be an interesting build. The build on the head isn't finished I'm going to look at my own Dalek mask when I get home this evening for more reference. Below are the edited reference images I'm using. The come from the Doctor Who technical manual.

Bam! Portal Gun

So today I made myself a Portal gun model.

I thought it would take me a couple of days to do but took maybe 5 hours maximum. It's actually pretty simple to make easily the hardest parts are the prongs on the front. The rear and front shell's are revolves that I then split apart and shelled the remaining pieces are revolves or extrusions. I used the circular pattern tool a lot to keep all the pieces in the same orientation.

Below are the blueprints I used originally sourced from http://www.indymogul.com/post/21883/portal-gun-stuff

I'll be uploading the files to GrabCad soon.

Solidworks Tutorials.

Apart from my basic understanding that I got from my first project which I'll post here some time I learnt it from these tutorials ranked in order of usefulness.

Lamborghini Gallardo by far the best tutorial I have come across. While the tutorial doesn't explain how the tool you use work it describes literally every step, every mouse click, every button. It was perfect as I had never really explored surface modelling.  It's long enough to keep you busy and by the end you'll have a real grasp of the software.

It's currently on sale at the retailer http://www.solidworksgallardo.com/download-tutorial.php for $67 well worth it.

This was the solid works chopper. It's nearly all Solid Modelling the only part which is surface modelling is the seat. It was a good tutorial as it really made me understand the value of using patterns to achieve the end goal quicker. That being said it was not worth the money I paid for it. If you are going to spend some money do it on the Gallardo or others by the same author.

These two model's where quick and simple I got both of them off the same sight as the Chopper model and both where free. Great introduction to surface modelling. The site for all these is http://learnsolidworks.com/
It's great for beginners and those with some experience.

I'm on the internet who knew?

So I decided to start a blog. I'm going to start putting major effort into improving my Solidworks skills and see if I can't have fun at the same time.