How I Learned Blender
From parody tutorial to creating a practice
My first introduction to blender was this one-minute comedy tutorial:
… but naturally I had no clue that this guy was saying so I forgot about it for a few months.
Picking an Into Class
There are so many amazing tutorials on Youtube*. It’s def not necessary to pay for a class, but I felt overwhelmed by the options and wanted a consistent voice to learn the basics.
*If you want to go the Youtube route, I’ve bookmarked a few of my favorites here.
I told myself “just say say no to optimization paralysis, starting any class was better than none!” :3
What I enjoyed from his class
Walkthrough of his process: from mood boarding to file organization
Encouraging students to not follow the script!
Thorough breakdown of basics (showing multiple ways to construct the same chair, and why he might pick one over the other)
What frustrated me
No rendering until the last project!
I ended up skipping to the end for this reason. (short feedback loops make me happy)
Ditto for camera controls and lighting
Making a Practice
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste.
But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.
[…]
And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.
It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
- Ira Glass
I had finished the class … now what? Luckily I had some time off work for the holidays and nowhere to be (due to the pandemic).
What worked for me
“Fill the well”
Basically, make sure you are feeding yourself inspiration and taking care of yourself. Stock up on new ideas and experiences. Borrowed this phrase is from The Artist’s Way (a 12 week creativity workbook).
For me this meant exploring the city, sitting in parks, watching movies or shows.
Keep a list of ideas
Items varied from: color schemes, subjects, holidays, techniques, links to tutorials and artists
ex. profile picture, rigging, chinese new year, cyberpunk, frogs?? MOTHS?
To start off this list, I browsed Pinterest, Behance, Instagram for other 3D artists
Whenever i’d hit a creative block I’d come back to this list
Block out time, adjust to your real life!
Over the holidays I was lucky enough to make time to blender almost every day. There were a few artists posting a render a day, though when I tried I realized it wasn’t fun for me :O
I’m a fan of focusing on practice over perfectionism - (it’s great to make “bad” pieces - part of the process)! However, the time pressure was stressing me out more than it was encouraging me to make more.
When I worked fulltime day job I adjusted to a weekly schedule:
I would block off 1 weekend day for chores/blender. That would normally get me into the flow to be excited to finish the piece Monday night.
I’d post on Tuesday morning and just relax during the evening.
Weds or Thursday I would start moodboarding and sketching, but not use Blender. My job was already in front of a computer, so I wanted a few extra nights away from my laptop.
Sometimes work or life would get too busy, and I’d remind myself it was okay to break a routine. Just come back to it when you can :)
Share with your world!
Will create another post on finding a creative community, but in short I’ve found that sharing with other people helps me find meaning in creating.
When in doubt, just add moths