[hawk_196]

i think the most important concept of solidworks is understanding the way it works.

many SW experts reccomend you think of object in their simplest forms. instead of including those curves in the initial extrude, you can go back later when its a 3d solid and work them out.

it basically boils down to making sketches, and then either extruding or revolving them in a Boolean Geometric environment. after you are in 3d mode, you select another face and create a sketch on top of that or use one of the 3D dolids tools (fillet, chamfer, hole, split, etc.)

and back to the simple shapes concept... imagine everything in simple shapes broken into different parts. You could, rather easily, model a whole pencil as a single part, or you could break it down into an assmbly of many smaller peices.

it just takes some getting used to and a bit of experience before you start thinking about objects a bit differently and figuring out how you would go about modeling them.