I like modeling cylindrical shapes. I find them particularly easy and fun. I started these to unwind a little from my senior thesis project. Based on my saved files I'm recording how long each approximately took for me to complete. I will mention that I apparently was doing some sort of speed modeling or something and I don't have exact times because in some of the jumps between versions multiple things were completed.

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The rook was first piece I modeled. I felt it was a fun challenge of doing the top part without adding an absurd amount of geometry. I started it using the whole cylinder without reducing and later I reduced the amount on the rest of the piece. Allowing the top to be heavier with the top detail and the rest to stay low.

Apparently I tried to start a NURBS curve version of the model and gave up. I restarted it again in version 3 of my files and I'm guessing it took me about an hour and some change.

 

The pawn is a fairly simple shape and I did it first to get my feet wet with the project. Making this helped me get used to the forms since the first piece I did was more for the challenge. I decided when making this piece that I would make the whole set.

By version 3 of my files, I have this piece done, so I don't have a solid time that it took me to do this. I'd guess it took me under 30 minutes because I didn't save between this and the king.

 

The king was the third piece I wanted to work on. I thought it would be rather easy and a good piece to do before the more challenging pieces of the queen, bishop, and knight. I did the body without trouble but moving to the cross at the top was a little hard. It took me a moment to decide on how to best route the geometry up through the cross. I probably can reduce the geometry amount in the cross a little but I also think it's fine. I might do it a little later.

In version 4 of my files, I have the king done. Which is about 40 minutes from the last file, version 3, which contained the rook and pawn.

 

The queen had a fun challenge of doing the crown. I had been wanting to do a crown piece like this for a while. I did on with the perfume bottles but it was a separate part of the bottle. This would be a challenge because all the pieces will have the same base. It would be hard to hide extra geometry in the less contoured form of the queen chess piece. I also liked the idea of keeping things as low poly as I could.

The queen was done in the same day as the three pieces before her, on the 16th of November. By version 5, I had the base model done an hour and 15 after the king was done. Version 6, another hour later, of that same day I had the model beveled and was set up to work on the remaining pieces. 

 

The bishop was my second to last. I made the whole shape without the cut first. I thought it would be easy to just cut the part out and bridge over the gap but I discovered it was somewhat hard to redo the geometry. In the second attempt, I started to work the cut in with the geometry flow. I decided it was going to be easier to do the cut if the geometry already indicated where I should cut. The next hard part was beveling the curved surface without it pinching anywhere. I think I largely found the best place for the bevel. There's still a little pinching but it's more manageable then anywhere else I tried.

According to my files, I saved both version 7 and 8 as the base model without the cut. It was also a separate day so the exact time isn't really recorded but I'm guessing based on the pawn and my schedule I'd say it took me about 40 minutes to do the base model. The next jump is also on another day but I didn't save between the two versions so I'd say it only took me about an hour or so. I typically don't save more frequently than once an hour, unless I completed something, am right before beveling or the computer hasn't been happy that day.

 

The knight was a challenge. Originally, I tried to do a soft form version of it but it didn't look good at all. I kept that version to help serve as a 3D outline of how I wanted the knight to look. I started to work with planes to achieve the more cut version of the piece. It was slow going but I think the knight looks better with how I'm not modeling it. I should have been done faster but I was being slow and somewhat lazy so it took me a week or so to actually get back to working on this.

The knight as said before has been the slowest going. In December I had a go of it and made the first version of the knight in about an hour. I had another go of it April and spent about 4 hours slowly doing the majority of the body. Then I picked it up again in May between waiting for the other files to respond. It seems I got the head done while bouncing between different tasks, over the course of 2 hours. I fiddled with the face and adding the ear for about 2 hours. I took around 4 hours to get back and start working on this again. I got out of my groove and didn't really figure out how to do the nostrils. After that, I worked on doing the mane and making the piece's shape more full instead of narrow.