Questions About Complex Furniture Shapes

SketchUp
1

My name is Tony Kubalak and I build reproduction 18th Century American Furniture. I have been using sketchup for about 5 years to model some of my furniture projects and that has gone pretty well. I am able to model most anything that is rectilinear and most any molding profile. I would consider my sketchup skills as intermediate.

I now want to upgrade my models with more details. The first step in that direction is to nicely round a cabriole leg and terminate it with a ball and claw foot. Currently I can create the rough cabriole shape by intersecting two extruded profiles. However, the rounding is more complex and I have not come up with a good way to do it. I have also dabbled with a ball and claw foot. I can make the ball from a sphere but I don’t know how to integrate the sphere into the toes and leg.

I have attached a couple of pictures of a leg and foot that I have carved to illustrate what I want to model. I want the same refinement of surfaces and level of detail as in the pictures.

Is this something that sketchup can do, or should I be looking at using a different 3d modeler? Blender for example.

I appreciate any insight that anyone might have.

Thanks.

Tony

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CabrioleLegRough_IMG_9773
CabrioleLegRough_IMG_97731525×576 162 KB

CabrioleLegSmooth_IMG_9792
CabrioleLegSmooth_IMG_9792576×1710 150 KB

BallFoot_IMG_1986|333x500

2

Here is the foot image.

BallFoot_IMG_1986
BallFoot_IMG_1986360×540 83.1 KB

3

This doesn’t have the ball and claw foot but here’s an example I modeled entirely in SketchUp some years ago.

Ball and claw feet are definitely doable in SketchUp, too.

4

:slightly_smiling_face:

5

David,

Your model has nicely rounded cabriole legs. What techniques did you use for that? That is one of the first refinement steps I want to do. Also your leg blends nicely into the foot. Did you use native tools or some plugins?

Tony

6

That was done so long ago that the upper part was mostly brute force. The extensions @mihai.s suggests would make that easier now. The foot was done with a combination of Follow Me and Curviloft.

7

My book, “SketchUp Success for Woodworkers,” (Cedar Lane Press) explains one way to make a cabriole leg and ball-and-claw foot using only native tools.
Good luck,
David