Shopping Cart (unfinished)

We were asked to create and texture a model that would fit in with our Unreal project, something that was possible, but that tested our skills. I decided to model a shopping cart, a choice that I regretted deeply about 45 minutes into the task. I used a normal shopping cart as reference and edited the outcome to fit the futuristic setting.  I ran into a problem almost immediately.

As seen above the cart consists of a cage-like mesh, which proved very difficult when I started modeling. Along with the difficulty, making a cart like this just didn't look right at all, it was a mess and didn't fit in with the other models. In the end I scrapped the cage-like design and used flat panels as frames instead, which looks much better and slick.

The UV wrapping still stumped me, I had to watch the tutorials again, and even then it had taken much too long. However it is only the creation of the net that stresses me, once I have the net and get to texture on photoshop I have no problems, i've used pre-made nets to wrap 3d objects before without fail, I'm going to have to work on it at home.

Overall I am happy with the model and my modeling ability, it took an hour or so, but most of that time was spent fixing errors. I'd really appreciate being given one 'difficult' model a week to sharpen my skills, whether that be given by myself, my group, or a lecturer.