In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use the follow me tool to create a vase. Once you’ve completed this tutorial, you should be able to use the follow me tool to create other objects as well.
Vase Tutorial
Flowers Modeled by Nguoi thoi ken
This is a step by step tutorial on how to create a simple vase in Sketchup. It will provide you with a good understanding of the Arc Tool 
(A), Offset Tool 
(F), and the Follow Me Tool 
. No Sketchup experience is necessary to follow this tutorial.
To start modeling a vase, you need to create a profile outline of the vase. We will then extrude the profile around a circle path to create the vase. Sketchup makes this task pretty easy using the Follow Me Tool . You might want to look for a picture of a vase, or go find one in your house. It really helps to have something in front of you that can guide you with modeling proportions.
Watch the video, or follow the step by step directions below.
Step 1 – Draw a Rectangle
Before you start drawing the profile, it’s a good idea to just create a surface that you can draw on. It just makes it a lot easier for the drawing tools to inference the same plane when you have a face to drawn on. Go ahead and create an upright rectangle, and turn it into a group so our profile doesn’t stick to it.
Select the Rectangle Tool 
(R), and create a rectangle. The size doesn’t matter, just make it a little bigger than the vase profile.
Triple click the rectangle, right click, then select “Make Group” to isolate the rectangle onto a group.
Once you have a rectangle created and isolated to a group, you can start drawing your profile. You’ll draw your profile on top of the rectangle you just made. We’ll be deleting the rectangle later on. Make sure the rectangle group is not open when you start making your profile.
Step 2 – Create a Vase Profile
Image courtesy of www.CraftsinIndia.com
Since we will be extruding the vase around a circular path, we only need to draw one half of the vase profile (side view). I decided to create a model of a vase I found online, just to help me with the proportions.
With the Line Tool 
(L), start to draw the flat bottom of the vase, then continue a second line up at an angle. Then, select the Arc Tool (A), and create a long shallow curve, giving the vase some volume.
REMEMBER: When I draw the profile, I am drawing on the face of the rectangle group we created in step one. The pictures are zoomed in so you don’t really notice the rectangle.
Don’t forget, you can pick your own style vase to draw, you don’t need to follow along exactly with what I’m drawing. You’ll probably use the arc and line tool though, so if you don’t know how to use those tools, these next few steps should help you.
Select the Arc Tool (A), and continue the profile by clicking the point from where you last left off. Drag up and over, click to set the arc endpoint, then click a third time once you’ve moved the arc bulge to where you want it.
Continue using the arc and line tool until you have come back to your starting point.
At this point, you can delete the rectangle group you created in Step 1.
Step 3 – Create wall thickness
We are going to make this vase hollow, so that it is similar to a real vase. To do that, we need to give the wall some thickness to it. Using the Offset Tool (F), we can do this very easily.
Select the Offset Tool (F), and hover and click the face of the profile. Then pull the mouse to about a 1/4″ away from the outer line and click to finish. Be careful that you don’t offset too much because the lines will start to overlap. To see what I mean, move the mouse to the center of the vase while using the offset tool and you’ll see lines starting to overlap.
After you’ve created your offset lines, you need to close off the top and the bottom, so that you can delete all the interior lines we don’t need. You just want to be left with the half profile of the vase. Imagine if you could cut a sliver out of the middle of a vase. That’s what you want this profile to look like.
Once you’ve “squared off” the top and bottom with the line tool, use the Eraser Tool 
(E) to erase the lines you don’t need.
If needed, you can make adjustment to your profile before you head to the next step. For instance, I realized I had my center point way too far out, so I wanted to move it. I just selected the vertical line, then used the move tool to move it in, along the green axis.
Step 4 – Create path for Follow Me Tool
In order for the Follow Me Tool to work, you need to define a path for the face to follow. In this case, we want our path to be a circle. That way, the profile we made will spin around the circle and create our vase.
Select the Circle Tool 
(C), and hover over the center point of the profile. You’ll probably notice a little circle will pop up once you lock onto a point. Depending upon what angle you’re looking at, the circle will be red, green, or blue. You may have to orbit 
towards a top view perspective in order to get the circle to snap to a blue color.
Start the circle by clicking on that center point, then drag it to the outer edge of the base and click to finish.
Step 5 – Create Vase with Follow Me Tool
Before you select the Follow Me Tool , you should preselect the path that you want the face to follow. Most people skip this step then get frustrated when things don’t work out as they expect. Try to remember that whenever you are using the Follow Me Tool, always pre-select the path before activating the Follow Me Tool.
