Blender Canvas Podcast RSS Feed

First off, I want to thank you for listening to the Blender Canvas pocast.  I hope that you find it informative and helpful.

In this first episode, I talk about Blender, a little bit of my background and what I hope to accomplish with the podcast.  I also share some of my favorite resources for learning more about Blender as well as meeting other artists.

Blender

If you are just now learning about Blender, it is a 3D modeling and rendering program, similar to what you might find with 3DS Max, Maya, Poser, or some other similar program.  The big advantage Blender has on the others is that it is free -- which makes it great for someone just starting out learning to do 3D modeling and rendering.   Yet it has enough features that even a pro could find it useful.

If you'd like to learn more about blender, you can check it out by going to Blender.org.  While you're there, be sure to check out the gallery to see some images that have been created by various artists using Blender over the years.

 Tutorials

When I first started to learn Blender, I found a few tutorials, but nothing like we have today.  Now, you can find several high quality videos, timelapse, and test shots.  (I'm not saying you couldn't learn from the ones 7  years or so ago...  There were some good ones, even then.)  I thought I'd share some of my favorite places to learn from.

Blender Guru -- I forget exactly when I first encountered Andrew Price, but I know that it was either the intro to compositing tutorial or the Realistic Kitchen tutorial that I came across when I first learned about Luxrender.   When Cycles came along, I had come to trust Blender Guru and it was one of the sources that I turned to when I wanted to learn how to use it.  Although I haven't tried any of Andrew's courses yet, I do have my eye on which one I want to do first.

Blender Cookie -- I think I first learned of Blender Cookie (a part of the CG Cookie sites) when I was trying to learn Luxrender.  Between that and the stylized dragon tutorial, I quickly discovered that the site was filled with great tutorials.  Last year, I learned just how great the site was as I became a Citizen member, opening up whole series of tutorials, and took the Mastering Modeling in Blender course.  While I still have a lot to learn about modeling (and a lot of practicing to do), I learned a lot in that course and would highly recommend it to anyone wishing to get better at modeling.

Blender Nation -- As long as I've known about Blender, I've known about Blender Nation.  It's another great resource with tutorials, interviews, and more that can help you to learn how to use blender.  (For some reason, I thought they had a forum, but I guess I'm wrong about that...)

YouTube -- whether you use it's own search or Google's search to find something here, don't underestimate this site.  There are some videos  you might not find (or would have to search a long time to find) anywhere else.  Even some of the ones on the other sites are hosted here.  In fact, if I can't find what I'm looking for in one of the other three, this is the next place I look -- unless I'm looking for something specific that I already know is somewhere else.

Meet Artists

While you can learn a lot from tutorials, you can really learn a lot from other artists, too.  A number of  great forums are around that can help you to find other artists.  Some may be about 3d modeling in general, but there are a few dedicated to Blender.  With members from all over the world, here are a few you can check out for yourself:

Blender Artists -- Whether you are looking for galleries to inspire your imagination, contests to challenge you, or other members to ask questions to, this is a great place to look.  It's a part of the CG Cookie group of sites (but I don't think it always was... I could be wrong, though...), but you DON'T have to be a CG Cookie Citizen to be a member.  In fact,