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I initially thought the City body would be easier than the Hilux, but it is definitely not the case...

Started by applying Canvas and calibrated them around the chassis


Then create a first extrusion and a second one to make the profile of the body...


Then tried to loft or sweep the profile... Many tries already, and I'm back to square one... I think it avove my current limit in Fusion 360. I need to learn how to master form and surface modelling for this... I will try other ways, but this will definitely take more time than what I initially expected...

As said yesterday, the main body requires to approach the things differently.

I started to work it out today...
First, I defined the top profile with T-splines for the window, the bonnet and the roof. I defined arcs on planes along the path using the canvas to approximatively position them so I get the needed result. After that, I applied one loft for the front, one for the bonnet, one for the roof and lastly one for the windows And that looks very much closer from what I expect...


Then I defined remaining faces from their profile.


I then applied lofts to complete the front, and used sketches to define the bottom patches.


Last, I did use Trim tool to remove the unnecessary pieces of profile.


I then used the stich tool to "glue" faces together (one by one, other wise it doesn't close the body, and I have now a solid body to define the main body of my Rock'n City... That was the hard part. I expect the rest to be easier

Yesterday, after my last post here, I started to draw the rear additions...


And when starting to extrude them, I noticed that all the work I did till now was useless... The shell did not work, and joining additional bodies neither... Time to go to bed, to sleep and to think about alternatives... This morning was not better either...

Then I got an idea : what if it comes from the line inserted in the middle on the sides?

During my lunch break, between two meetings, I took the time to check... And this is because of that line : any details needs to be applied after the thinken or the shell command...

After my day of work, I reopened Fusion 360, and restarted properly this time.

After having rebuild the main body without the line, I started to work out the rear left side...


I soon added it to the main body, did some cut, a mirror and a join, and here we are...


Next is about the front, where I applied the same principles...


We are getting there...


A lot remains to do, but it should go quicker... I'm also quite sure I can prepare a printable bodyshell, the windows shell and everything to do a close but not exact rock'n city... I learned quite a lot of things those days, and I'm quite sure I would do the Hilux differently with this things I discovered those days...

Started my day with the plain bodyshell in Fusion 360


I started to focus on roof, and that was quick and easy... Then the side was a lot of work... It was a bit long to obtain what I wanted, but at the end it works more or less the way I want...


Next I tackled the winshield opening... DId not succeed to the limits around, I may have to rework this again later, as it is spanning on 2 faces, the way I worked the rest did not make it. I will need to find another solution.


Next was to deal with the rear face... The complexity level is high, and sometimes I had to find workaround as the main body gets faces broken without any reasons... I still don't understand the problems sometimes but at the end I got a valid result.



Next is about the front face, but that will be after the break...

I tackled the front after the break...

First started by the front end... There was different options, but looking at what happened to the rear, I decided to do it by small extrusions... After a lot of them, I finally got it right (the timeline is huge, but it is doing the job - I grouped them before applying the mirror).


After that, I had to take care of the bonnet. In comparison to what I've done until now, this was simple...


It already looks more or less like a City body (not perfect, but it is better than nothing, especially considering that I did not have it in hands).



There is few details missing : I need to emboss the vents on the top of the bonnet, and the opening marks... And beside this, I will need to take care of the windshield part, so it can be printed too...

With a full surface definition for the main body, it was very easy to pull a model for the windows body... I used a new copy of my bodyshell and removed everything except the surfaces definition in the timeline. Then I applied an offset to make it smaller, and used that to generate the body fo rthe windows...


Next I had to find a way to fix the windows body, it's basically easy, you just have to check it won't be a problem with the bathtub or the rest of the chassis... I opted for 6 M3x6 screws. I defined first the attachments on the windows body...


Then I defined the ones on the bodyshell


I then made additional small checks with the roll bar as I wanted to make sure there won't be any issues with it... At some point I had a discrepancy between the center of the chassis and the center of the bodyshell, something I can't explain, but while trying to solve it, I've seen some weard things (not it's not something I wanted to display the belts)...


Some pics of the finished Fusion360 model...








I will need to get prints organized for the windows and the bodyshell to do a test after the rebuild...

The Racing Baja Body required a bit more of Surface modeling love...

I defined the body using this mode this time....


I used thicken command many time in order to make sure it would work


At the end is here a new bodyshell

The work on the Honda body is the best I've seen you do yet , really good I think if I was actually trying to produce the window section I'd vacuum form it from a buck , easy to make based on your design . Truly great work my friend .
The second body is very good too , I've only tinkered with the more sculptural part of Fusion so far .

Dadio wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 3:45 am The work on the Honda body is the best I've seen you do yet , really good I think if I was actually trying to produce the window section I'd vacuum form it from a buck , easy to make based on your design . Truly great work my friend .
The second body is very good too , I've only tinkered with the more sculptural part of Fusion so far .

I'm impressed by the City result... I will need to get it printed at some point. The print will likely be expensive...
I'm not sure what I'll do with the files... I've seen recently people selling cars completed with parts printed from my files, and this without mentioning the file origin, and cars were sold at price on par with cars with all original parts. This is pretty disappointing, all the more so as they was not even a single thank you... I may consider taking down all my parts on Thingiverse and put them with a price tag on Cults3D at the end... For the City, I also need to think about what I'm going to do with it (I see people are starting to ask for it, and I'd prefer it to be for good use rather than for increasing the cost of cars)...

Partnership with a lexan producer like penguin might be good. Needs to be affordable?

threesheds wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 7:21 am Partnership with a lexan producer like penguin might be good. Needs to be affordable?

Well... Producing a mould is about hundreds of Euro (a bit less than a 4 digit figure to have it in proper type of material and finish, and it would still require some work). I took contact with Penguin (as I was said he has already worked from stl), and the response was very quickly: "if you produce the mould, I would vac form the shell for you, but I won't produce it by myself". Th'as closing any option to work with Penguin on that aspect.

I'm still open to other ideas

silvertriple wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 6:28 am

Dadio wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 3:45 am The work on the Honda body is the best I've seen you do yet , really good I think if I was actually trying to produce the window section I'd vacuum form it from a buck , easy to make based on your design . Truly great work my friend .
The second body is very good too , I've only tinkered with the more sculptural part of Fusion so far .

I'm impressed by the City result... I will need to get it printed at some point. The print will likely be expensive...
I'm not sure what I'll do with the files... I've seen recently people selling cars completed with parts printed from my files, and this without mentioning the file origin, and cars were sold at price on par with cars with all original parts. This is pretty disappointing, all the more so as they was not even a single thank you... I may consider taking down all my parts on Thingiverse and put them with a price tag on Cults3D at the end... For the City, I also need to think about what I'm going to do with it (I see people are starting to ask for it, and I'd prefer it to be for good use rather than for increasing the cost of cars)...

It's very disappointing to get no credit at all , your work is of a high standard and there's no shame in earning some money for it , myself I only put usually £2.50 mark up on small parts and more on larger more difficult to design parts , my heart is for making affordable parts to keep cars running , Shapeways already charge a lot so I only add a small amount . Cults3d is not a bad compromise .

I realized that I did not clean the Hirobo parts when I model them... I did not have the ultrasonic cleaner when I started this...


All the parts of the 3 cars are now in the bath, for a few hours...

3 chassis (Zerda, 44B City, 44B Hilux), that makes a lot of red parts

I received today a few bodyshells from TBG, including one for my 44B-Hilux and another one for the second 44B chassis (on which I'm still hesitating about what i'm going to do in fine).

For the 44B Hilux, I may use a Kyosho Datsun Step Side... It's quite close in spirit from the Hilux bodyshell initially on the chassis.



I may have to review the front end, the roll cage, the mirrors, and the exhaust and the body mounts as well, but I already check and it goes around the radio box. I still have a doubt regarding the radiobox lid, as it may add a few millimeters on both side, but at least, this will make a good solution for this chassi, even if I have to do adapt a radio box lid for it... But at least, I have a solution now, awaiting for another one to come later (which I can't talk now).

For the LWB chassis, it may be either a Sand Scorcher bodyshell (lexan) or a Lancia 037 touring body (which maybe slightly too large to be in the spirit of the original 037 body going on the chassis, but as I don't have the original bodyshell to compare, I won't be able to say for sure, but at least it will be able to contain the radio box)...