this is what I'm doing

More or less. (I just typed "more of less," and I think it was a Freudian slip.)

All of these take direct inspiration from other pieces that I've found on the internet. . .

I spend a lot of time cursing AutoCAD and 3DS Max.

another autocad command of great importance:

solprof. Creates a profile image of 3D object.

in the world of autocad 2010

where you can't figure out any of the menus. . . most useful commands ever:

1. chprop -- allows you to change the properties of an object, such as its layer assignment

2. shademode -- allows you to flip back and forth between "realistic" shading and "2d wireframe" shading to check for holes and solidness