Gary A in KC wrote:

I really like the design. Think it has a modern look with some arts and
crafts flair to it. Only thing I'd question (since the bottom rail
discussion has been had!) is the top panel of the drawer cabinet being a
frame a panel construction. Rarely do you see a horizontal surface done as
frame and panel. One reason is the difficulty of keeping it clean! That
just looks out of place to me for some reason.

Thanks for the kind words, I put in the frame and panel to allow for
expansion in the constrained space between the legs. I don't intend to
make it much more than 1/8" gaps, but your comment is a good one. I need
to look into allowing for expansion in another way.

Otherwise I really like the
look of the piece. It cries out for a nice piece of figured cherry as the
top.

The idea of going with marble is to allow the use of the top for beverages
without having to worry about wood damage.

I'm really intrigued by the design process though. I've always been a
paper/pencil kind of guy (hold over from drafting class in junior high
school). How long did it take you to do the rendering??

For the first draft, I have about 12 hours in the CAD drawing; that
includes designing in the drawers, plant-on panels and frame and panel dust
skirts.

The Blender rendering took a bit longer because this is my first
experience with rendering software outside of the built-in rendering that
TurboCAD provides. Thus I've been getting myself up to speed on the
software and finding the desired textures, finding out how to get the
system to animate rotations, etc. I've probably got a few 10's of hours in
the rendering process; that includes playing with various options, aspects,
etc.. Knowing what I know now, I could probably render a new drawing with
desired textures for rotation in a couple of hours and with a reasonable
scene in a couple more.




--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough