The winner of the Speed Modelling Challenge #23about “Fire” was Rich (aka “rclub24″) with this entry.

Rich said: “I’ll kick things off, but it’s not fire in the real sense “ but who cares could we ask? Fire related and a cool, clean model. Congrats to the winner – a well deserved purple badge until he is dethroned by a next winner!

Render Plus is launching a new IRender nXt rendering contest. It starts on Feb 15, 2010, and will run until March 15, 2010. Results will be announced on March 30, 2010. You do not need to own IRender nXt, Render Plus will provide a free copy during the contest.

This years contest is designed to highlight the features of their new Version 3.0 of IRender nXt. In particular:

1. The new Materials libraries of over 6,000 materials for you to use.
2. The low res Arroway texture library of 100 textures
3. The new library of 49 RpTreeMaker Plants
4. RpTreeMaker to create your own plants
5. ArchVision RPC Objects
6. HDRi Skies

Each entry will make use of at least 4 of the new features. There are great prizes such as

1. NetBook – Samsung NC10 or Toshiba NB205 – Value $334.00, or Render Plus Combo Pack, including IRender nXt – the premier rendering product for SketchUp – value $549.00;
2. Spyder 3 Pro mouse – value $139.00, or IRender nXt – the premier rendering product for SketchUp – Value $449.00;
3. Vis Tablet – value $100.00, or nXtRender – quality SketchUp rendering at an affordable price – Value $99.00.

For more details, please, visit the Contest page at Render Plus.

The winner of the latest Speed Modelling Challenge was Kostas (”kostas_designer”) with the above entry (see larger version in his original forum post). Well deserved glory, congratulations!

The winner of the latest Speed Modelling Challenge (#21 – “Multi tool”) was CaptainLS with his “office space Swiss army stapler”. Congrats to the winner – as well as all the other participants with their also cool entries!

The winner of the Speed Modelling Challenge #20 about Dr. Seuss was d12dozr (Marcus) with his excellent Circus Crane model. A well deserved prize – a copy of ProfileBuilder (worth $29) kindly offered by Whaat (Dale Martens).

Congrats Marcus and thanks Dale!

The winner of  the Speed Modelling Challenge #19 on “Pet Houses” was Boofredlay (Eric Lay). Now he seems to have taken the record for most consecutive wins.

Congrats, Eric, nice job and well deserved golden badge!

Joel Metzger, creator of these wonderfully charming movies has just posted his newest part in the “Discovery” series; “The Bellfield Lunar Anomaly“. He uses SketchUp to create these “cartoonish” looking movies and applies it very effectively during his workflow. Don’t forget to visit his revamped website to watch all the other parts as well in case you have missed them so far.

This is only a decreased version of the movie so make sure you watch it fully on his site instead:

I don’t know how “new” this is but nomeradona, member of the SketchUcation Community – and several other – Forums has just posted about his SketchUp, Photography and Art Blog.

I am probably not alone enjoying his gallery submissions for years and it is very nice to see many of the familiar works in one place again – as well as his photographs which haven’t been shown to us on the forums too much yet. Also, don’t miss the Resources and Download section where he shares many cool materials and shaders – several people will definitely be happy with.

One of our top contributors, Eric Lay (aka “Boofredlay”) has won the Speed Modelling Competition # 18 (”My Crazy Chair”). A well deserved trophy and yellow badge until the next challenge – #19 “Pet House” – is over.

As announced in the Competition Voting Topic, the winner of Speed Modelling Challenge #17 – “Video Games” is Pete Stoppel (aka “solo”) with this entry.

Congrats, well deserved yellow badge!