how to start a 3D building

An easy way to begin creating a paper building model is by doing what I call the child's building block approach. I am not trying to teach a complete course on it here as there are many ways and many different programs work differently than Ironcad which I model in I am just showing one approach that could be used and is easy to understand.



Here I have added in some basic building blocks that will become a building with a tower at the corner of it. Each change of color represents a different block. The reason for having that many blocks is it makes it easier to shape them and later use those shapes to project onto the virtual pieces of paper you overlay them with. Over on the right side you will see that the program I work in has a library of basic shapes you can drop into a scene and then resize and modify. That funny looking circle shape with red dots is the secret weapon of this program that makes it easy to reposition things including rotating the virtual sheets of paper for unfolding them into a flat pattern.





So next I create angles on the roof sections. After that I would put in holes that represent doors and windows and then drop onto the surfaces the virtual paper sized to the thickness of material I will be making the building from. The program allows me to project the surface of the individual blocks onto the paper including those window and door openings. This quick method of modeling saves many tedious hours of 2D drafting in all the lines and details. You could also use this method in the program Sketchup.





Here I have added in a new building block shape for a dormer. So now you have the concept, start with simple shapes then refine them, then add in the shapes that will become the paper and project the block shapes onto it.