Introduction: Create a Fancy Necklace

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The following information is a single lesson in a larger Tinkercad project. Check out this and more projects on Tinkercad.

In this lesson you will use positive and negative shapes to explore design in Tinkercad.

Instructions

  1. Continue to the next step.

Step 1: Positive and Negative Shapes

Positive shapes are made by objects that take up space. Negative shapes are made by the empty space around an object.

Instructions

  1. Take a moment to review the image to better visualize the positive and negative spaces that make up the chair.
  2. The areas shown in black are positive shapes and the areas in white are negative space.
  3. Continue to the next step.

Step 2: Positive Necklace Shapes

The necklace shown here was simplified using positive shapes.

Instructions

  1. Continue to the next step.

Step 3: Create the Negative Shapes

The gems and chain of the necklace creates a specific negative shape. That negative shape will help us to accurately put the pieces of the necklace together in Tinkercad. With the space left over we can use a Round roof.

Instructions

  1. Using basic shapes from Tinkercad, let’s recreate the negative shape.
  2. The chain of the necklace wraps around and meets the gems to create a half cylinder.
  3. With the space left over we can use a Round roof.
  4. Continue to the next step.

Step 4: Building Your Necklace

Now that you have the negative space created, it's time to start creating the pieces of the necklace.

Instructions

  1. Cutting a torus in half can be used to make the chain.

  2. The magenta and red gems were created and aligned to the Round Roof shape.

  3. At this step, the negative shape will really help out. The workplane tool can be used to place the rest of the gems, connecting to the chain.
  4. Press “W” to switch to the workplane tool. Move the cursor over the side of the Round Roof shown in the image and left click.

  5. The workplane will now be aligned to that side. The smaller blue gems were created and grouped as seen below. Because these two gems will be repeating, the group was selected and copied by holding CTRL and pressing the “C” key.

  6. Press “W” to switch to the workplane, the next side was selected. Holding CTRL and pressing “V” pastes a copy of the blue gems, but they are now aligned with the new side.

  7. This is continued until the gap is closed.

  8. Once the positive shapes are in place, the negative shape can be deleted.

  9. Congratulations! You made it!