SketchUp Halloween Entries

Aidan at Google has posted lots of images of entries to the first Google SketchUp Halloween Challenge (haunted house or carved pumpkin). Cool stuff!

Top three winners will be chosen and announced at a later date in the SketchUpdate newsletter. See all the images and Aidan's post here.

"Three Friends a Greeting" by Sebastian St.Troy of Austin, TX, USA (Image and caption from Official SketchUp Blog).

Halloween Contest!

A couple years back SketchUp Island hosted a pumpkin carving contest (using SketchUp 3D software of course).

I am pleased to see that Google is sponsoring a similar event this year! You can create either a pumpkin, a haunted house, or both! Read all about it on the SketchUp blog.

Check out the wild entries from our own contest in 2009 right here.

Pumpkin Fishy

Check out the pumpkin-themed fish model (or fish-themed pumpkin model) created by Cathy in France for both the "SketchUp Island Pumpkin Patch" 3D model collection and this week's 3D Challenge: Fish.

Make your own 3D fish for the design challenge, or create a Halloween pumpkin and add the tag sketchupislandpumpkins2010 for inclusion in our fun pumpkin 3D model collection. Or try both!

Haunted Pumpkin

Another beautiful pumpkin "carved" using Google SketchUp, this time by Cathy Tritschler of France.

Upload your own pumpkin carving to the Google 3D Warehouse with the tag "sketchupislandpumpkins2010" (no quotes) and it will be added to this great collection of SketchUp pumpkins!

Pumpkin in a Pumpkin in a Pumpkin

Many thanks to Aerilius for sharing his creative talents with this beautiful virtual pumpkin carving!

Share yours this October on the Google 3D Warehouse and add the tag (without quotes) "sketchupislandpumpkins2010." It will be added to the pumpkin patch model collection.

The Pumpkin Season

It's that time of the year again in SketchUp Island-- the pumpkin season!

WINNERS of the Pumpkin Carving Contest

Congratulations to the top three winning pumpkin-carvers in the SketchUp Island carving contest! The judges have spoken and...

Gold Medal goes to Aerilius in Germany who created the menacing "Snarling Pumpkin" who is biting another pumpkin.

Silver Medal goes to Cathy Tritschler of France whose terrible ogre pumpkin swallows the Earth on its tongue while looking scary at the same time.

Bronze Medal goes to Tobias Merk, whose Rübengeist is not a pumpkin at all, but a fodder beet. Says Tobias of his carving, "we have a very similar custom in Germany or more specifically in Bavaria where I'm from. Instead of pumpkins our children use fodder beets for making little ghosts, which should scare away evil spirits. We call these carved beets "Rübengeister"

Excellent work everybody. All three winners will appear in the header art of this blog in the week leading up to Halloween. Additionally, Igloo Studios has donated a year's subscription and a month's subscription to their School Pro website for First and Second Place winners respectively.

Thanks Mike and Alex at Igloo Studios, and thank you judges (Beryl, Jennie, Addie, Alex, Eryne, Dawn, Zack, and Mike), thank you Aidan Chopra for donating pumpkins to carve, thank you John Wilkes for providing entertaining pumpkin fiction, thanks Tasha at Google for blogging about this, and thanks to the many other people who submitted pumpkins. Did I leave anyone out?

I hope you all had some fun. Peace out.

Pumpkins Pumpkins Pumpkins

All October it's been nothing but pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins here on SketchUp Island. Pumpkin Mania! The pumpkin carving contest has been a success, with the last few pumpkin entries rolling in today...

Soon they'll be judged (thank you, lovely judges) and then on October 27 the winners will be announced and appear in the header of the blog here.

In addition to this, Second Place winner will receive a one-month Pro account membership to Igloo Studios' School website, and First Place winner will receive a whole year's membership! Thanks to Igloo for that.

Good luck, pumpkins of the World!

UPDATE: The entry period has closed (one hour ago at 11:59 PM on October 24 Eastern US Time). If for some reason your pumpkin appears after that time, regardless of the upload date it won't be submitted to the judges, however it will appear in the collection with all the other pumpkins. Thanks to all participants and judges!

SECOND UPDATE: Winners will be announced tomorrow (October 27) and appear in the header. Good luck!

SketchUp Competitions

This just in... Mike Tadros and Alex Oliver of Igloo Studios have thrown in a one year Pro Account membership to the SketchUp School website for the first place winner of the pumpkin carving contest, and a one month Pro Account membership for the second place winner!

Enter now, dammit!

Or, if carving pumpkins just isn't your thing, or if you missed the October 24 deadline for the pumpkin carving contest, there are some other SketchUp competitions coming up to suit every taste...

Check out the SketchUp blog post all about it HERE.

Halloween Header Art

Good morning, SketchUp Islanders! And spooky morning, too. Mwah-ha-ha!

You may have noticed that the new autumn holiday header art has arrived as promised. I created this illustration not just to decorate the blog, but also to commemorate the contestants who have entered the Pumpkin Carving Contest. Thanks to all who have done so!

Anyone can enter before October 24. Just carve a virtual SketchUp pumpkin, upload it to the 3D Warehouse before October 24, and include the tag "sketchupislandpumpkins2009."

Our judges will rank three top pumpkins, and those pumpkins will be added into the blog's header artwork for the Halloween season, along with the names of the three winners!

NOTE: The header illustration was created with Google SketchUp and image editing software. Everything is "from scratch" and no photographs were used.

Beryl the Builder

Meet Beryl the Builder.

Beryl Reid will be one of our judges this Halloween in the pumpkin carving contest. Be sure to enter a pumpkin design by October 24 so that Beryl can check out your work!

Asked about herself, Beryl writes

My interests [are] Art, Photography, SketchUp, Genealogy, teaching, paper sculpture, learning new things... the usual. I just found out that I am going to be a grandmother, so that's taking front runner in the interests list right now. I am a Google Certified Teacher too, I teach Google World to my school system. I was trained by Google in Boulder this summer, now I am set forth to spread the word of all the great apps created by Google. My little "Literary Landmarks" collection of buildings is now featured on Google "Lit Trips", which I am very proud of and I live in Massachusetts.

PS. She's called "Beryl the Builder" because of the number of quality 3D models she has built on Google Earth. Check them out HERE. She did a couple pumpkins, too! Last but not least, congratulations on your good news, Beryl.

Modest Judge With Red Worms

Meet Jennie.

Jennie is a very cool friend of mine and a judge in this year's SketchUp Island pumpkin carving contest. Be sure to enter HERE before the deadline (October 24) for a chance to have Jennie check out your work and, if it wins, it will appear in the Halloween header artwork for this blog!

Jennie, by way of introduction, has this to say about herself

Jennie has a fine arts degree that gathers dust as she works as an executive wrangler at a VA consulting firm.  She comes from a long line of pumpkin carvers, and is still plotting her design for this year.  She claims to have no recent accomplishments.

So modest! Jennie forgot to mention how creative she is (knits a mean scarf) and that she has a red worm composting system! Thanks Jennie and, see you around the Island...

A New Spin On Your Old Models

Meet Zack Mertz, one of our pumpkin judges this Halloween in the pumpkin carving contest.

Or rather, meet Zack Mertz's pumpkin. This is Zack's "Happy Halloween" greeting from him and Concept3D to all of you (Enter the contest so Zack can see your work, but do it in the next ten days before the contest ends!)

The original graphic was much cooler than the one I posted above, because the pumpkin could spin in a 3D view like the models do on the 3D Warehouse. I couldn't figure out how to host the images and so yes, I failed. But at least you get to see one frame. If I figure it out I'll re-post with the spinning view. In the meantime, see it here at Concept3D.*

If you want to learn how to hack the 3D view code (known as the SketchUp web exporter plugin) and customize it like Zack did, watch this YouTube video.

Zack is a founder of and a 3D designer at Concept3D, based in Boulder, Colorado and Minnesota. He is an avid skier and a recent father.


* EDIT: Scroll to the bottom of the post area to see the 3D pumpkin gadget Zack made. Thanks to Aerilius for the tip on how to make it work!

Autumn Greetings From Oxfordshire, UK

SketchUp Islander Wurzeller has submitted the latest pumpkin to the pumpkin carving contest today, along with a cool little history of pumpkin carving traditions in his family. I like it! He writes

We have a tradition of carving Hallowe'en pumpkins and sometimes turnips in my family. This menacing design is similar to one I have done, with variations, many times in real pumpkins...

Click on the 3D Warehouse logo in the image to check out Wurzeller's pumpkin up-close. Then from there click on the link to the SketchUp Island Pumpkin Patch collection and check out the other cool Jack-O-Lantern submissions we've been getting!

SketchUp Is So Twisted

SketchUp Islander Aerilius wanted to share a cool Ruby plugin with all of you. He writes

Hi!

I wanted to share some tips about pumpkin growing:

There is a useful plugin by ruby-developer Fredo. His plugin Fredoscale allows to choose the direction of the scaling box in SketchUp. He has enhanced it with many additional features like tapering, twisting and bending. The plugin [first requires] Libfredo, and you only need to copy the files inside both zip-archives into the /Sketchup/plugins directory.

It may be useful to make pumpkins look more natural and asymmetric.

Thanks, Aerilius! I'll have to try that one out. It accomplishes something that I always want to do in SketchUp but never knew how...

Pirate Dawn

Meet Pirate Dawn.

Dawn will be one of our SketchUp pumpkin carving judges this Halloween. If you haven't submitted your pumpkin to the SketchUp Island Pumpkin Patch yet, you might want to... soon. Otherwise Pirate Dawn will come and get you! Arrr!

Dawn is a costume/set designer for the music business in Los Angeles and a self-described "Halloweenie Lover," also working in the travel industry. She's a pirate. AND she's doing something great this October to help those suffering from HIV and AIDS through AIDS Walk Los Angeles. Dawn says

Rain Stomper

Meet Addie Kay Boswell. She will be one of our SketchUp pumpkin carving contest judges this Halloween.

Addie is a painter and children's author/illustrator living and working in Portland, Oregon, whose picture book The Rain Stomper (illustrated by Eric Velasquez) was just awarded the Oregon Spirit Book Award.


Congratulations, Addie!

To enter the pumpkin carving contest and have Addie check out your work, enter the site HERE.

Pumpkin Making With Aidan

You may have seen the tutorials on how to make a 3D pumpkin that I posted to the SketchUp Island pumpkin carving contest website.*

What's cool is that there are many unique approaches to creating a pumpkin shape, really. I just figured out one way on my own. Below is a demonstration of another way that Googler Aidan Chopra makes pumpkins, using complex curves.

Read on!

Awesome SketchUp Jack-O-Lantern Wallpaper

Go visit the pumpkin carving contest site* to get this really awesome high-resolution Jack-O-Lantern wallpaper for your computer! It's in the section marked "goodies."

The full size image is 1200 X 1600 pixels and looks great on my 1344 X 1792 monitor. (Click thumbnail for preview size only).

While you're at it, register for the pumpkin carving contest (see the site* for details). The winners will be featured in the new header artwork of this blog!

"Happy Pumpkin" was designed using Google SketchUp and is the official mascot of the 2009 SketchUp Island Pumpkin Carving Contest. 


*BOO-HOO! Although the site is no longer live, you can still see all the cool pumpkins that were made in the 3D model collection HERE.

The Contenders

The contenders are starting to march in to the arena for the pumpkin carving contest, and they look great!

Want to win? Be sure to enter soon, because the deadline is October 24. For details on how to enter click HERE.

The prize? Your pumpkin and name will appear in a new header illustration for this blog. The blog has had ten thousand (10,000) page views in more than 100 nations since late August, so your pumpkin will be seen by many people! But the bigger award is just doing it. It will definitely make you cool and maybe even get you a girlfriend or boyfriend. Trust me.

Please remember to follow instructions carefully in order to win. Include only solid colors (not photo textures); turn off edges and all geometry except SketchUp faces; upload your pumpkin as a "close-up" and don't forget to tag it with "sketchupislandpumpkins2009."

I prefer that you light it for October 31, 2009, 8:00 PM from the bottom right (see top right example) but this is not absolutely necessary.

One more thing. Have fun :-)