Modelling Process – Camping Chair | Development

Intended Outcome:

• Work with fabric to create a realistic camping chair.

Problems I encountered and how I overcame them:

• While the majority of this build was simple, it was also time-consuming. Because the image I was using to reference had many different pieces, and I wanted to stick as true to this image as I possibly could, I ensured I focussed the majority of my time on ensuring I created each part of this build as accurate as possible.

• I started at the base of the seat, making sure the shapes were symmetrical and resembled the shape of the initial image. I relied heavily on the boolean tool and beveling certain pieces more than others to establish the difference between pieces. Because I only had an image to reference, I had to alter this first piece a few times to make sure the proportions were appropriate for the rest of the build, so I ended up going back and forth resizing each piece until I was happy with the result. I used the same methods as I used in the base to create the back and legs of the chair, as well as the braces.

• When creating the arms of the chair, I used the ‘hide’ option heavily to prevent my model from warping where I didn’t want to. I also used the bevel tool quite a lot, but as I was new to using this tool in such an obvious situation, it proved difficult to get the final result I wanted. Despite this, I managed to resemble the chair’s arm in the reference image I was following quite accurately.

• One thing I had to focus on heavily was the influence of dowelled wood in this piece of furniture. Dowels are used to stabilise the legs of the chair, as well as to alter the rate at which the chair can be reclined, so I had to ensure the dowel at the back of the chair was accurately placed. I also had to create notches above the dowel where the alteration would be locked in place in the real world.

• While I had experience in working with fabric in Blender, I was only confident in creating simulations, not using fabric in an actual project, so this project helped me to develop these skills. This chair had a rather simple fabric set up, but I decided to change the top and bottom design in order to ensure my final output was realistic. In the inspiration image, the fabric wraps around the top and bottom frames, but I chose to embed the fabric within these pieces instead, which looked just as plausible. I had experimented with wrapping fabric around poles to see how I could recreate this, but opted for a simple resolution to this problem.

• Because of previous problems I had experienced with wrapping fabric around objects, I also decided to make the back piece of fabric static instead of adding a cloth simulation to it. This would not affect my final model as I would be angling the chair so that the main focus is the front of the chair. I took inspiration for this design from other examples of camping chairs and furniture as it was not visible in my initial image.

• To complete this model, I bevelled any edges that were too harsh, and I ensured that the normals of the mesh had an auto smooth angle of 30 degrees. I also removed any unnecessary faces/vertices and grouped any meshes that would be textured the same to help save time when UV unwrapping my models for texturing and added a solidify modifier to my fabric pieces.

Where to go from here:

•  Use some of the skills I have learnt in this modelling process to create a camping bed.

Timelapse:

Final Model: