Gettin' Dimensional

The last couple of months have been full of murals and conferences and meets. Painting outdoors is a blast, but the whole time I've been thinking about carving dimensional pieces in the back of my mind.  I have projects I need to complete and I'd like to be fully up to speed on the shopbot as soon as is possible.  This weekend, I decided it was time to work out the method for importing 3d models.  I can build things in the software for carving, but I thought it would be great to be able to build a 3d model and then import it and carve it.
Just to get the method figured out, I found a fun but inaccurate model of one of my favorite movie models...the Nautilus from 20,000 leagues.  I spent some time working out how to slice it, size it and generate the toolpaths.  I set the machine to carving and went about my business.
Success!

This was carved in some 1 1/2" HDU in about 2 1/2 hours.  I hadn't really expected it to go so well on the first shot, but I was pleased that it did!

I hate to waste things, and while this model is not accurate, I couldn't resist putting a little primer and paint on it.  I've been playing with primer textures ever since I took Dan's class and this seemed like a good place to try out something different. The boat is underwater and I thought I'd put a swirly texture around it.  It reminds me of an old technique used on gold leaf to add a circular pattern...I thought it would be cool to translate it to primer texture!

Now it's time to move to larger models and bigger carves...the fun is on now!