2023 Tree Ornament Challenge Griswold Car

thingiverse

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is the inspiration for this design. I wanted something simple and quick. I shared some steps in my design process for anyone that wants to create their own from scratch. I find that simple shapes are sometimes more inspiring for those who don't have a lot of experience modeling. First I drew a rough outline of the station wagon just "freehand" with lines. I drug the connection points until I was happy with the overall shape. Then a simple extrude to a width that looked ok. Then I just utilized the fillet tool to round everything over to make it look even more like a late 80's car.Second I drew a line for the tree spine along the top of the car using a new sketch on the same plane as the car. It was tempting to use the spline tool, but it wouldn't support the revolve tool that I used next. Then I drew rough trapezoids along the spine and drug the points until I was happy with the tree. Don't forget the big roots hanging out the back! Once that's complete revolve each tree section separately using the spine as the rotation axis.Third I drew some axles for the wheels on the same sketch as the tree and extruded them in both directions from the center line of the car. After the extrude was complete I created a new sketch on the surface of the axles, drew a circle for the wheels. Extruded the wheels and gave them a nice fillet to make them look more tire-like.Last I drew a sketch on the bottom of the tree roots for where I would remove material. I wanted the roots to look gangley like they would on a real tree. This was just random triangles radiating from a circle the same size as the base of the roots. Do and extrude to remove. Pop on a fillet if you're feeling brave and admire your work.You can try to add an ornament hanging hole, but I was just going to glue on some ribbon.You can also use an emboss tool on the side to imprint the year if you're into that kind of thing. The side of the car is fairly flat.If you'd rather not start from scratch or want to modify what I have it was created using Onshape. Link below.https://cad.onshape.com/documents/8a27ea413c6f9859b6371ac8/w/94db5950999224fd6643e012/e/1461a7fe182b092447452c47?renderMode=0&uiState=6579e44cd5fadf3b437bb74e