I modeled my pin using published USBC specifications and also used different methods to generate the meshes.
A. Spin extrusion method: I find Blender’s curve manipulation tools a little clunky so I created my open path in Ilustrator. This also allowed me to to create the curve to spec instead of just eyeballing it. When done, I exported the curve as an SVG which is importable from within Blender. And then I followed the rest of the lecture.
B. Bottom Up Extrusion and Face Scaling: I started with a simple cylinder which was sized to the spec base of the bowling pin. I started extruding upward along Z until i reached the marked segment. Then I selected the top face of the cylinder and scaled it along XY to that segment’s top-side diameter. To make this process easier, I created an Excel sheet for the extrusion heights and scaling percentages I needed for each segment. Rinse and repeat until I reached 13.5" in height whereupon I created a UV sphere and cut it horizontally in half to make the top of the pin. Model B is a more accurate model than A but I had those pesky extrusion edges to deal with.
C. This is Model B with subdivide smooth applied.
