Reacquainting Myself with Blender
Back in 2014, during my undergrad at Sarah Lawrence College, I attended a semester-long course on the open-source 3D engine Blender. Having had many years of experience working in Photoshop (plus the mental energy of balancing the rest of my classes), I remember finding the shortcuts and controls a bit overwhelming. That being said I was able to create some beginner-level scenes with the skills gained during that course.
Flash forward to now, 2023, and I find myself being drawn back to Blender. Despite the time between now and 2014 in which I focused mainly on 2D art and design, something about the software is calling to me. Maybe it’s the years I’ve spent playing Dungeons & Dragons and building characters & worlds, maybe it’s the fascination I have with concept art as I was able to explore that side of design/gaming in my most design role. Whatever it is, I’ve decided to answer its call, purchase a course, and re-learn Blender with the hope of creating some compelling concepts based on the stories that swirl through my head.
The course I am currently following is called: “Complete Blender Creator: Learn 3D Modeling for Beginners”, taught by the GameDev.tv Team, Grant Abbitt, and Rick Davidson. So far I have completed the introduction section in which we were guided through the basics of Blender in order to create a low-poly lighthouse scene, my final result shown below.
Before moving on to the next section of the course, I found myself with the urge to create a sword. Being a lover of concept art I really want to use this course and subsequent tutorials that I will inevitably follow to build the skills to create some compelling item concepts, and having the base knowledge of how to create a simple sword felt helpful and necessary. So, I found a tutorial on YouTube for creating a sword in Blender and dove in.
Now, this tutorial was quite a challenge. The instructor moved very quickly and it was apparent to me that this tutorial may be for those with a bit more experience in Blender. Nevertheless, I continued on and was able to learn a lot that (maybe obviously) was not covered in the introductory section of the course I am following and got to make a pretty sweet sword as well!
Feeling like I wanted to challenge myself a bit more, I ventured on my own to create a simple scene in which to display my sword with the knowledge I had gained. I created and textured the stone, worked with an HDRI image to create the world texture, and adjusted the lighting to match the scene. Below is the sword on its own beside the sword in an environment.
I am really looking forward to the next steps in my Blender learning with the next section of the course covering modular dungeon design. Beyond the course, I would like to follow some tutorials covering things such as fabric, foliage, and fire. I hope to update this blog weekly with progress in Blender as well as other courses I am following in environmental/conceptual painting, narrative design, and logo creation so stay tuned for more.
Ok bye bye,
Kayley
