Recently I felt I was getting nowhere and stalled in my blender skills and decided to share this with others because it might be useful .
To get out of the negative self doubt loop, I decided to revisit the scenes I built last year when I started to learn blender.
Soon I realized I am still losing a lot of time, but not the same way I used to last year in the beginning. Instead of being irritated not being able to do what I wanted to and trying to keep to the most basic shapes and fighting to get the elements in order to compose something visually appealing, I find myself now be more structured in the workflow that put me often in "the zone".
Build a basic blockout and positioning the camera where I think I want it to be. Then starting iterating the refinement, keeping what I know will be technically harder for a separate part where I can focus on that element only without being distracted by the fact that the scene still doesn't go where I want. I find myself now also losing time just going for extra details that even will not make it to the end scene, just because it is fun, and who knows it might be useful later on. Because... it's not during the process ideas come and go, a bird you wanted to have in your composition might suddenly become a tiger, a dog, a car... It's a journey, a journey where your mind has no limits (well... except from the required sleep, eat, drink and work :) )
Another big benefit from this exercise is that it get's you back to what you felt while you were working on that particular piece and that's where you will really feel how much you have matured in your blender journey. And that... That is in my opinion an excellent way to boost your confidence back up when feeling a bit lost.
For me the Blender Learning journey is one that is confronting with ups & downs, but a lot of pleasure in the discovery, and continuous improvement. I am grateful there is such a place as CGCOOKIE to get help and direction in this journey. Who knows, with a little more patience I might even start making a living thanks to Blender.
This is the scene from 2021
I am currently reconstructing it and yes, I did not stall, I did evolve :) . I still have lot of work on the new version and it will probably end up far from perfect, but next year I'll revisit again and the year after... As a reminder that even if you feel a bit down at a certain time, you can hold on to what you've accomplished and processed compared to your past self.
including a more high poly version of the boat I'm working on in parralel.
more screenshots will be shared in this WIP thread as I continue to work on it.
adding the details to the ship. I wonder while working on the ropes, is there a plugin helping you make the ropes go around objects (in the pulleys) without having to tweak it by hand?
spikeyxxx these extra objects really help me add more detailed rope mechanics in a simple way, thanks for the tip. I"ll update de draft of the boat where I approximated it all. still needs work event though I like it already :-)! Cheers!
