Becoming great at anything requires constant practice and that is especially true with 3d modeling. If you're here it's probably because you want to become a better digital artist. I myself want to improve my 3d modeling and texturing skills and that means I need to model a ton in order to become better.
Building a consistent habit is the path to becoming great and with that I wanted to provide a challenge to anyone else here who wants to join me. The challenge will be to model one new 3d model daily for 30 days.
The goal of this is not to create amazingly realistic models, but to get you practicing your modeling skills daily. You are not competing with anyone here but yourself.
Each day this post will be updated with the object to model based on that week. Below are the rules and guidelines to make this more interesting:
Themes
To make this more interesting, every week will focus on one theme. Each theme will represent a set of 7 objects that are relatively easy to model, but each have unique elements to them to challenge you in different ways.
The themes for the next 4 weeks include: Home, Weapons, Props, Nature
Rules
Submissions
Post a rendered image of your completed model. While texturing won't be required, it is highly encouraged.
HOME (June 1 - June 7)
For this week we'll focus on objects found around the home. Typically these objects are relatively easy to model and reference. You are free to get as creative as you want with these as long as you modeling what is requested for that day.
June 1 - Sofa
June 2 - Lamp
June 3 - Book Shelf
June 4 - Coffee Table
June 5 - Lounge Chair
June 6 - Shag Rug
June 7 - Floor Speakers
Week 1 is Done! Congrats on making it through the first week of this modeling challenge. On to week 2.
WEAPONS (June 8 - June 14)
For this week we'll focus on creating hand held weapons. Think melee weapons. These usually have a mixture of primitive and complex shapes. You may use sculpting during these models, and some may actually require it to achieve the look you want.
June 8 - Axe
June 9 - Combat Knife
June 10 - Spear
June 11 - Shuriken
June 12 - Spiked Bat
June 13 - Sickle
June 14 - Nunchucks
PROPS (June 15 - June 21)
This week will be focused on props you might commonly see in games or background scenes. These can be reused to add "filler" to an environment. These props mostly reside outside.
June 15 - Barrels
June 16 - Tires
June 17 - Filled Trash Bags
June 18 - Concrete Barrier
June 19 - Shipping Container
June 20 - Dumpster
June 21 - No Object
June 22 - No Object
Vegetation
This week will be focused on organic plants and objects you'd find out in nature. Think of these as natural props.
June 23 - Grass Clumps
June 24 - Rocks
June 25 - Flowers
June 26 - Bushes
June 27 - Hollow Log
June 28 - Vines
June 29 - Trees
CHALLENGE COMPLETED
This officially ends the challenge, technically it's 29 days but we have another challenge starting up on Monday so use Sunday as a way to gather reference photos and start your next modeling challenge with vehicles!
Thank you for everyone that participated in this challenge. Some objects were easy, others were challenging and I hope you learned some new tips and techniques. This challenge was about keeping a habit going and learning some new techniques and use different tools to create something you may not have otherwise. It was great seeing all the new renders on a daily basis. Good or bad, you've created something and that's what matters. See you all in the next challenge!
spikeyxxx how did you do the serrated part? I had wanted to incorporate it into mine but I was having so much trouble, that I did away with it.
cciku-karugi I use overlays of grunge and scratch maps along with maps based on ambient occlusion to isolate the crevices and corners. Check out the Sci-fi Helmet Shader course, https://cgcookie.com/course/shading-the-sci-fi-helmet. That's were I learned the most.
I think your knife looks good. I reccommend you add an HDRi texture to the environment so it will have interesting reflections, bevel modifier to smooth the corners slightly, up the reflection on the blade and also add a bump map to the handle. I just used a noise texture with the scale set to 500 or so to give my handle a rough rubber look.
Learnings this week and today: It is a good idea to put into practice what you´ve learned (e.g bootcamp) ;)
So this time I took more thoughts into the topology before starting modeling.
And its works much better for me.
cciku-karugi Honestly, that was a nightmare;)
I had to re-do that part several times, because of shading artefacts. Next time I will do it differently, I don't know how yet, but at least I won't make the mistakes I made this time (I hope!)
I can't explain it, so here's what it looks like:
Basically, I pulled the 'points' outward and that caused all kinds of problems, especially to get the angles right...
I would have saved my self a lot of trouble, if would have 'edge slided' the 'in-cuts' inward...
spikeyxxx that's a looooot of vertices 😄 But it looks great in the render so we're good
This is a good start for something interesting. Unfortunately I can feel my brain going offline for today so it's difficult to make any decisions about the design. Until tomorrow! 
I went for a more complex design. Topology took some time and I don't want to just slap on bad textures on it. I'm kinda starting to like messing around with matcaps :D Fits well since the model is unfinished.
One "30 Days of" that I really want is "30 Days of Drawing/Concept Art". I'm terrible at drawing, and I think that a "30 Days of" for it would help me to get better at it.
wanted to make it look like it was flying in the air, learned about force fields (wind) and cloth simulation. The blade probably should have been larger, but looks like a spear. Gave up on the lighting for this one and just used an hdri from hdriHaven. Maybe better lighting would have made it look more 3d. Currently living in fear of the gun, which I am sure is coming, will be quite a stretch for me to do that one.
train30 thank you, I'll check the course out. I'm sure it will be a big help.
As for the knife remarks, I'll be sure to try them out. Thanks a lot! :)
spikeyxxx thank you. I'll try that, serrated edges add something extra to the knife. Thanks again.
My cuhrazy spear (or lance, who knows). Was originally looking up realistic reference, but came across some ridiculous stylized stuff and thought that'd be neat to do. I do need more practice coming up with my own designs, so thought I'd give it a go. Might flesh it out / texture it somewhere down the road
I was having a bit of trouble with this one. Just couldn't get things to work well so I'm calling it a day. I also had trouble getting my camera into view, kept somehow appearing in the middle of the spear so I just took a screenshot of what I have. Not the best model, but at least it's done.
Oh Mondays. I didn't have as much time for this one as would have like.
Hira shuriken and bo shuriken. Interesting topic that I haven't studied before.
My spear.