Sand Castle Project Inspired by #WINTERBLUES Contest

When I first saw the Winterblues beach contest, I thought straight away of “the seaside” as we call it and buckets and spades. I’ve thought of doing something like this in the past for my “Traditional Toys” Gallery, so now seemed a good time to attempt it.
I’m not sure if it would be a qualifying entry into the contest as it doesn’t have a beach house, although it does have a special castle! Maybe @TheOnlyAaron or @Caroline could tell me that?

Steady now, easy does it…

I decided from the start to make the bucket and spade detailed, I suppose an exercise of technicality. I concentrated especially on the edges and where to put rounds and chamfers on them. I started with the castle and made the bucket a negative of that. I think it took 4 attempts until I were happy with it and made the handle to fit. I then went for the spade with the same careful approach, the round on the outside top edge of the spoon were especially tricky because the edge profile is curved. I managed to keep all 4 components solids…

I then tried the Sandbox Tools for the first time, even though I’ve been using SU for several years I’ve never used it. I made the mesh and used the Smooth tool to manipulate it into shape and made it a solid. I added a water component which is solid and sits inside the sand as real water would.
I placed the sand, bucket and spade onto the plateau and even cut out the sand where the parts touch as you would see in reality, again keeping the detailed approach…

Then I fiddled with smoothing, textures and shadows until I were happy with the look…

A top view of the plateau…

A scene with a sketchy style…

This style has two watermarks, a GB flag image and an old paper image, a Great British day at the seaside…

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If you can figure out how to add this castle to a beach house or tiki hut scene, we’ll count it! :slight_smile:

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This bucket needs to be 3d printed!

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Well it won’t be me doing that but remember you saw it here first :smiley:

That’ll take a bigger than average 3D printer, but great idea for Trimble to do.

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You know… I think I know a guy that may be able to make this happen…

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Make the bucket! And then use it to hold the swag for attendees of Base/BootCamp 2018!

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Well… I could probably make a few… Enough for everyone at Basecamp… That may be pushing it…

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Printed this guy to celebrate the Sandbox tutorial, but I think a bucket upgrade is in order!

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Make one for Ian and one each for the Sages! :smiley:

#notAbusingMyPower

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You are perhaps starting a very Finnish phenomenon…

Item 3: 6 incredible news stories that could only ever happen in Finland

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Contact the people responsible for the Swag! There may (crossing my fingers) be enough in the budget to have a few hundred made.

Well… That would be that same guy who may be printing the bucket… He’s a great guy and all, and quite intelligent, funny, and handsome… But I’m fairly sure that we won’t have the time or money to print over 1000 buckets…

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@TheOnlyAaron You play games at this basecamp don’t you?

I’m an architect not an industrial designer, but isn’t there some quantity threshold at which it doesn’t make sense to 3D print the actual product, but rather to 3D print a mold or something and mass produce them that way?

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This is what I was thinking too. However, a 3D printed object is much more charming than a conventionally mas produced one, at least in this context :stuck_out_tongue: .

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If you want to save money, print one bucket then make a sandcastle for everyone at Basecamp.

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Does that mean one sandcastle for for everyone to share, or one each? xD

I meant one sandcastle each, but one to share would save even more money!

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Thinking Outside The Bucket