Your speed is insane, and you use blender? Wow…
Amazing Work. U will surely win.
Two more completed!
FINISHED ENTRY #19: BROADSWORD
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT AND BACK VIEWS:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP AND BOTTOM VIEWS:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE VIEWS:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 1 hour
Lighting: 10 minutes
Shaders: 10 minutes
Total design time: Approximately 1.5 hours
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 15 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 5 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: The design on the sword was modeled using bezier curves. Beauty shot features some of Blender’s built in halo flare materials set to two cubes (one in front, one behind the swords).
RobertT
FINISHED ENTRY #20: OFFICE CHAIR
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT:

ORTHOGONAL / BACK:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP:

ORTHOGONAL / BOTTOM:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE 2:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 3.5 hours
Lighting: 20 minutes
Shaders: 40 minutes
Total design time: Approximately 4.5 hours
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 30 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 6 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: This one took a while, but I’m happy with the outcome, particularly the level of details and the degree of realism. The chair makes use of Blenders Magic and Stucci procedural textures for bump mapping.
RobertT
Two more entries…
FINISHED ENTRY #21: MARKER
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT AND BACK VIEWS:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP AND BOTTOM VIEWS:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE VIEWS:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 20 minutes
Lighting: 5 minutes
Shaders: 10 minutes
Total design time: Approximately 45 minutes
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 10 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 3 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: I had some fun with beauty render and got colorful 
FINISHED ENTRY #22: TACKS
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT AND BACK VIEWS:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP AND BOTTOM VIEWS:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE VIEWS:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 15 MINUTES
Lighting: 5 minutes
Shaders: 20 minutes
Total design time: Approximately 45 minutes
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 15 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 7 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: Ah, this project brought back some happies memories, as one of my earliest scenes when I got first into 3D was an attempt to portray many falling tacks. Simple but fun to make 
On to the next one…
RobertT
FINISHED ENTRY #23: LIGHTSABER
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT AND BACK VIEWS:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP AND BOTTOM VIEWS:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE VIEWS:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 2.5 hours
Lighting: 20 minutes
Shaders: 30 minutes
Total design time: Approximately 3.5 hours
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 8 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 4 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: This is something I’ve always wanted to try for fun to model at some point. Thanks to this challenge I finally had reason enough to go ahead and do it
Ignited lightsabers use Blender’s halo material for the blade. Additional lights were placed in the back of the beauty render to help illuminate the room. Blender’s render node setup for this project contain a screening pass help with the environment and to boost the halo material glow slightly.
RobertT
thats a pretty cool looking custom saber you’ve got there…
i must say its a shame that the overall interest in this challenge seems to have faded a bit as of late…there only seems to be a few of us still plugging away at it.
I love all your work! it’s amazing how you can take something so simple and turn into somethign that is pleasing to look at! great design and renders so creative! yet simple! Superb! Might i ask how you modeled the details on the blade surface of the broadsword?? I’m having difficulty creating models that have similar modeling? Thats keeping me from posting a fiew models cause i’m stuck at not being able to model detailed stuff like that on a surface.
robo3687: Thanks! I haven’t had a chance to check all the other threads for the challenge, but hopefully people will stick to it 
yencarey: Wow, I really appreciate that
The sword details were modeled in with beziers and techniques including copying portions of a bezier circle, subdivision along some curve points wherever necessary, and then proportional editing of portions of the curves once closed. Afterwards, they were given depth and then converted to mesh to become part of the sword.
Now for several more updates…
FINISHED ENTRY #24: SPEAKERS
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT:

ORTHOGONAL / BACK:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE 2:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP:

ORTHOGONAL / BOTTOM:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Lighting: 5 minutes
Shaders: 5 minutes
Total design time: Approximately 3 hours
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/low OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 8 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/low OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 4 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: Speaker material is procedural. Wires were modeled using curves.
RobertT
FINISHED ENTRY #25: ROSE
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT:

ORTHOGONAL / BACK:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE 2:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP:

ORTHOGONAL / BOTTOM:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Lighting: 15 minutes
Shaders: 10 minutes
Total design time: Approximately 2 hours
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 5 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 3 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: For the beauty render I was thinking of showing sort of the life of a rose. A screening pass was added in the render nodes. The three separate stages of the rose were achieved using proportional editing. The petals were modeled in an open fashion, and some were separated and shrivelled manually for the third and final stage of the rose. Only wish I had more time to spend on these entries to do so much more, particularly with the materials and lighting. Still is fun and good practice 
RobertT
FINISHED ENTRY #26: B-52
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT:

ORTHOGONAL / BACK:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE 2:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP:

ORTHOGONAL / BOTTOM:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 1.5 hours
Lighting: 10 minutes
Shaders: 5 minutes
Total design time: Approximately 2 hours
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 5 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 3 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: Just a quickly done thing mainly to catch up to where I think I need to be at this point. I pursued this more like a game model in terms of polys and made use of mesh mirroring to expedite matters. I didn’t find great reference images. I’m doing all this on dial-up, btw, so just uploading and waiting for the reply screen to appear has been fun 
RobertT
FYI to all:
HCM: 30 Days, 30 Models: Voting thread will go live on MONDAY (Posting Rules) (link)
-R
Thanks so much, everyone! 
I’ve been very busy with some animation work and some other projects, but I did manage to kick in the afterburners and finish the challenge over the past couple of days 
I’m posting links to the last four entries just to get them out there. I’ll summarize each entry and post more information ASAP.
Here we go:
ENTRY 27: PARK BENCH
BEAUTY:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/7611/entry27benchbeauty800x600sa3.jpg
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/949/entry27benchbeauty1200x1600gy6.jpg
FRONT:
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/7001/entry27benchfront800x600od5.jpg
BACK:
http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/7855/entry27benchback800x600jh3.jpg
TOP:
http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/8595/entry27benchtop800x600gj7.jpg
BOTTOM:
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/1320/entry27benchbottom800x600ft3.jpg
SIDE:
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/3296/entry27benchside800x600ta4.jpg
SIDE 2:
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1166/entry27benchside2800x600kn7.jpg
ENTRY 28: MAILBOX
BEAUTY:
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/4117/entry28mailboxbeauty800x600li2.jpg
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/1615/entry28mailboxbeauty1200x1600vu0.jpg
FRONT:
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/1313/entry28mailboxfront800x600pa7.jpg
BACK:
http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/677/entry28mailboxback800x600gk7.jpg
TOP:
http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/2364/entry28mailboxtop800x600ks0.jpg
BOTTOM:
http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/2264/entry28mailboxbottom800x600hy0.jpg
SIDE:
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3964/entry28mailboxside800x600vi9.jpg
SIDE 2:
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/766/entry28mailboxside2800x600uj9.jpg
ENTRY 29: HIPPO
BEAUTY:
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/3839/entry29hippobeauty800x600gi9.jpg
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5941/entry29hippobeauty1200x1600rf4.jpg
FRONT:
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/7582/entry29hippofront800x600ex6.jpg
BACK:
http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/4392/entry29hippoback800x600gp1.jpg
TOP:
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1281/entry29hippotop800x600je6.jpg
BOTTOM:
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/7836/entry29hippobottom800x600kg4.jpg
SIDE:
http://img473.imageshack.us/img473/9436/entry29hipposide800x600gx0.jpg
SIDE 2:
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/4756/entry29hipposide2800x600tu3.jpg
ENTRY 30: HORSE
BEAUTY:
http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/8929/entry30horseback800x600cs1.jpg
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/7135/entry30horsebeauty1600x1200sh1.jpg
FRONT:
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/4781/entry30horsefront800x600ef9.jpg
BACK:
http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/8929/entry30horseback800x600cs1.jpg
TOP:
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/3549/entry30horsetop800x600kz7.jpg
BOTTOM:
http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/7646/entry30horsebottom800x600bg0.jpg
SIDE:
http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/1838/entry30horseside800x600rb9.jpg
SIDE 2:
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/5991/entry30horseside2800x600ah3.jpg
RobertT
As promised, here are the full text summaries for the final four entries:
FINISHED ENTRY #27: PARK BENCH
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT:

ORTHOGONAL / BACK:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE 2:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP:

ORTHOGONAL / BOTTOM:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 2.5 hours
Lighting: 10 minutes
Shaders: 15 minutes
Total design time: Approximately 3 hours
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 10 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/medium OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 6 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: Bezier curves and proportional editing were used to model the decorative portions of the bench.
RobertT
FINISHED ENTRY #28: MAILBOX
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT:

ORTHOGONAL / BACK:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE 2:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP:

ORTHOGONAL / BOTTOM:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 2 hours
Lighting: 5 minutes
Shaders: 20 minutes
Total design time: Approximately 2.75 hours
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/low OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 6 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/low OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 3 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: Flag is posable, and the box can open and close
And look in the box: you’ve got mail!
I had to go with low light/AO/OSA samples to speed these last few entries along.
RobertT
FINISHED ENTRY #29: HIPPO
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT:

ORTHOGONAL / BACK:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE 2:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP:

ORTHOGONAL / BOTTOM:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 3.5 hours
Lighting: 20 minutes
Shaders: 1 hour
Total design time: Approximately 5 hours
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/low OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 9 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/low OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 5 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: Camera in the beauty shot is set around 60 or 70 to pull in the angles and limit the view. I would have liked to create a couple of different scenes, one with several hippopotami in the water or one underwater. Maybe sometime down the road. All procedural textures for the skin/ground. This was pursued more as a game model than something realistic, which would have required more time than was available for this particular entry. I did these last few pretty much back to back. Mirror modeling across the x-axis (in frontal view) was used to create this hippo.
RobertT
FINISHED ENTRY #30: HORSE
BEAUTY RENDER:

image link - click for full 1200x1600 render
ORTHOGONAL / FRONT:

ORTHOGONAL / BACK:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE:

ORTHOGONAL / SIDE 2:

ORTHOGONAL / TOP:

ORTHOGONAL / BOTTOM:

ABOUT THIS PROJECT…
Modeling: 4 hours
Lighting: 15 minutes
Shaders: 15 minutes
Rigging: 30 minutes
Total design time: Approximately 5.5 hours
Render time: Beauty render at 1200x1600/low OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: 10 minutes; orthogonal renders at 600x800/low OSA/AO/shadow buffering samples: approximately 3 minutes each
Application used: Blender 2.42
Comments: Like the hippo entry, there was a known limit to how realistic this was going to become in the necessarily short time I had allocated for this final entry. I had a pretty ambitious beauty shot in mind (a full stampede) but after setting up five different horses in a scene and checking the clock I realized it wasn’t going to happen this time around. So the beauty shot took another direction, which was still fun in a way. The horse is very basically rigged. A full proper-IK driven rig would have taken much longer to develop. The great thing about Blender’s rigging (armature) system is the ability, like in mesh modeling, to model armatures symmetrically, which helps cut down the rigging down by half. There are several different ways to rig a model in Blender. For this one I went the easiest (to me) route and used envelopes, where basically each bone “envelops” a portion of the mesh. Once you have the basic armature established you can select bones in envelope mode (there are different bone modes as well) and press ALT-S to scale the envelope for one or more bones at a time. More control over mesh deformation requires things like weight painting and tweaking bone settings, which takes some time to get right for every model due to its unique structure and range of motions. All procedural textures were used for the skin and ground. The sky/grass backgrounds are based on photos of mine. The mane and tail were created using particle emitters and guides (bezier curves set to influence the particle emitters). This means the hair is posable and animatable. Curve guide are tricky in that they must be used carefully or they can influence one or more particle systems if they are all located on the same layer. Moving each emitter/guide(s) set to its own layer solves that problem. I hope to use this horse later at some point, make it a proper rig, and develop it further.
RobertT
Haha, looks like I had the wrong image linked to the beauty render of the horse for the 800x600 preview
The 1600x1200 version was fine though. Image link has been corrected in the above post.
RobertT