This collection showcases a variety of fidget toys modeled and rendered in Blender. The collection focuses on clean topology, realistic materials, and a balanced lighting system.

 

 

Fidget Cubes

 

I modeled the fidget cubes using simple primitives. The bases were cubes and the buttons were created from short cylinders. For the joystick, I extruded the lip of a cylinder outward to form the stem. The rocker switch opening was made by insetting a rectangular face and extruding it inward. As for the switch itself, it was a stretched and tilted cube. The gears were generated using Blender’s Extra Mesh Objects add‑on. Any indentations on the cube were created by insetting faces or adding loop cuts and extruding those faces inward. The fidget cube’s surface was created using a Mix Shader that blends Diffuse and Glossy BSDFs to look like it is made out of plastic. The Diffuse BSDF provides the cube’s base color and smooth matte look, while the Glossy BSDF adds a subtle shine to it. The goal of the project was to create realistic looking desk toys that are colorful and fun-looking. Both shaders use Noise Textures for bump maps, to provide realism, as no real life object is perfectly flat.

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Squishy Balls

 

The squishy balls were built from spheres. To create the netting, I duplicated the sphere and applied a Wireframe modifier to the duplicate. Halving a sphere created the cap that goes on top of the ball. The squishy ball’s material uses a Mix Shader that combines Diffuse, Glossy, and Transparent BSDFs to achieve a soft and rubbery appearance with subtle translucency. The Diffuse BSDF provides the base color and smooth matte surface, while the Glossy BSDF adds a subtle shininess that makes the material look like flexible plastic. A Noise Texture connected through a Bump node introduces subtle irregularities to the surface. The Transparent BSDF allows light to pass through the material, which enhances realism and emphasizes the ball’s squishy and gel-like quality.

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Fidget Spinners

 

Each fidget spinner was constructed from three short cylinders that were bridged together. After adding subdivisions and smoothing to clean up the bridging, I extruded the center of each cylinder inward. Subsequently, I used a Difference Boolean to create the ball bearing openings. A fourth cylinder was placed on top of the final bridged-cylinders-shape to form the spinner’s cap. Like the other toys, the fidget spinner’s material uses a Mix Shader that combines Diffuse and Glossy BSDFs to achieve a balanced look between matte and shiny. The Diffuse BSDF provides the base color while the Glossy BSDF provides the spinners with subtle shininess. Both BSDFs use Noise Textures connected through Bump nodes to add subtle surface irregularities, which provide the spinners with a realistic texture.​

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Tabletop

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For the tabletop, I took a plane and added a realistic interior wood material to it. The table’s surface material combines Diffuse and Glossy BSDFs through a Mix Shader, using high‑resolution PBR textures to achieve a realistic dark wood look. The Diffuse BSDF uses a particular shade of brown from a Diffuse Map. The Glossy BSDF adds soft reflections to the table. A Normal Map image adds grainy detail, making it look more believable.

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Chairs

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The chairs were created using a cube that was shortened vertically, extruded upward, subdivided, and smoothed. The openings in the chair were created by extruding faces inward, deleting the inner faces, and bridging the faces on the sides of each hole. Extruded cylinders were used for the legs. Little cubes that were given a Subdivision Surface modifier served as the bolts in the chair. The chair’s surface material uses a Mix Shader combining Diffuse and Glossy BSDFs to achieve a balanced look between matte and polished looks. The Diffuse BSDF provides the base color and soft shading, while the Glossy BSDF adds shininess. A Noise Texture connected through a Bump node gives the material a touch of realism without disrupting its clean appearance.

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Shelf

The shelf in the background was created using a cube that was stretched vertically and subdivided into rows that were inset. The inset rows were extruded inward. The shelf’s material uses a Mix Shader combining Diffuse and Glossy BSDFs to achieve a natural and semi‑reflective wood finish. The Diffuse BSDF uses a shade of brown with wooden grains from a Diffuse Map. The Glossy BSDF adds subtle shininess. A Normal Map enhances the wooden texture, giving the material depth and realism.​

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Walls

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For the walls, I simply took a cube, scaled it up substantially, and deleted all faces except for two that are perpendicular to one another. I assigned it no material. The default gray material used in Blender for meshes with no assigned materials sufficed for this project.​

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Lighting Setup

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A modified three-point lighting system was used with three Area lamps. To elaborate, the Fill Light is emitting light straight downward and directly above the fidgets to mimic the appearance of ceiling lights that would exist in a classroom. The Key Light, placed in front of the fidgets, tilted downward, and positioned slightly towards the left of the scene, is what is creating that gleam across the surface of the tabletop.