Render 1.6b

So, have you guys seen welders and stuff where the top/side edges protrude a little past the front face? They usually have rounded edges, so I've been thinking about them while working on my model. I'd been convince that all the edges rounded would look better, even though it would be incredibly difficult to pull off and make the seams look right.

Today at the hardware store, I happened to walk by the welders, and they happened to have one assembled in that manner. Upon seeing one in person again, I decided that was actually the perfect look. I also decided it would be cool if the front face had a brushed aluminum/steel finish. What do you think?



Sorry the inside doesn't look like much from this angle. I added some stuff to the inside for reference; the big, round block you see there represents my CPU fan/heatsink.

In person, the protruding edge will obviously have some thickness to it, and will look a little better than that. The only thing bothering me now is the interference between the protrusion and the chrome. Should I just leave it this shape and skip the protrusion? Or should I make the protrusion shallower (by about half), and let it pass through the chrome molding (I had it that way before and liked it, but it was hard to see the protrusion in the render)? Hrmm.

I also removed the antenna to check the look; damn, it does look better. Now, what to do about a handle?

EDIT: Oh yeah, pretty major difference: it's taller. Since the size is not limited by the dimensions of the case I hacked apart (back in the first couple of posts...yeah, changed my mind about that, by the way) originally, I decided to make it closer to a cube. By making it about an inch taller, the height is now the same as the depth (not including the front protrusion) of 9". The width is 10.5" due to the size of the motherboard; I could scale it to a cube that size, but that would be just a hair bigger than I want.