3D-Blender Dumb and very vague question, but how hard is it for a non-artistic person to learn and use blender?

[Emperor_Arcturus]

Like the title says, how hard is it to learn and use blender for someone whose best artwork is usually stick figures? I'm planning to make my own game and want to make some models for it, my own IP and all, and obviously wanna use Blender since it's free, but I'm a bit worried about how difficult it'll be to actually MAKE good looking characters. Already have a few classes I wanna take/videos I wanna watch lined up, just need to start it, just wondering if someone with no on paper artistic talent but with a good imagination can make anything that looks good lol

 

[DrTowel]

I kinda wanna use blender to make my own game too, but my drawing skill is bad as hell. I think good with stick figure is an advantage in modeling but your drawing skill in pen seems to change a lot during learning. Well good luck/

 

[redle]

Such a question is far too broad/complex to answer in any concrete way. 3D modeling (and blender) have lots and lots of capabilities, uses, and tools. "A moment to learn, a lifetime to master," as the general-purpose saying goes. How long it will take you depends a lot on how complex the models are you plan to make. How elaborate and detailed you plan to go. Making a bouncing ball or a sliding crate doesn't take the same amount of effort and knowledge as recreating the lost city of Atlantis or making a realistic human body.

As for sketching/drawing/painting on paper, I don't find that bares any relationship at all to making 3-dimensional models. Being able to create a mental image of what you want is common for both. But being able to convert that mental object into a physical one is a totally different process. So I wouldn't say being limited to stick-figures is any particular hindrance for you.

The biggest thing is, start small. Do this with both models and with game building. The bigger you set your first goal, the more likely you are to become frustrated, overwhelmed, and never finish. Not to mention in the beginning for both you'll be learning something new every 5 minutes and deciding everything you did in the previous 5 minutes should have been done completely differently. If it is a small project, you can push through. Then you can start a new and bigger project with all the knowledge you've already gained. If you start the big project, pushing through will get harder and harder and you'll likely need to start the whole project over from scratch multiple times.

(That said, this doesn't really belong in "art". I'd say it belongs in "dev help".)

 

[Emperor_Arcturus]

Such a question is far too broad/complex to answer in any concrete way. 3D modeling (and blender) have lots and lots of capabilities, uses, and tools. "A moment to learn, a lifetime to master," as the general-purpose saying goes. How long it will take you depends a lot on how complex the models are you plan to make. How elaborate and detailed you plan to go. Making a bouncing ball or a sliding crate doesn't take the same amount of effort and knowledge as recreating the lost city of Atlantis or making a realistic human body.

As for sketching/drawing/painting on paper, I don't find that bares any relationship at all to making 3-dimensional models. Being able to create a mental image of what you want is common for both. But being able to convert that mental object into a physical one is a totally different process. So I wouldn't say being limited to stick-figures is any particular hindrance for you.

The biggest thing is, start small. Do this with both models and with game building. The bigger you set your first goal, the more likely you are to become frustrated, overwhelmed, and never finish. Not to mention in the beginning for both you'll be learning something new every 5 minutes and deciding everything you did in the previous 5 minutes should have been done completely differently. If it is a small project, you can push through. Then you can start a new and bigger project with all the knowledge you've already gained. If you start the big project, pushing through will get harder and harder and you'll likely need to start the whole project over from scratch multiple times.

(That said, this doesn't really belong in "art". I'd say it belongs in "dev help".)

Ah sorry for the wrong place, my b don't think there was a Blender tag so I just went with art.

Also glad to hear that the skills don't transfer so I can at least try to be good at sculpting and such. As for starting small don't worry, the class I'm in starts fairly small, just started tonight, after posting my original message lol. Didn't end awfully, but definitely starting small, just using shapes to make a human-ish body and then painting it a bit. I'll post the finished product, without the painting because the colors are... not great, it was just a lesson on how to use the shading tab. Either way don't think it came out awfully for a first attempt, had a hard time with the legs and the actual hands, but the rest I think came out okay. Also the head got a bit screwed but eh, first real attempt and all, could be worse.

 

[rainbowpunfz]

Let me preface this with the following: I absolutely can not draw even if my life would depend on it, and before blender had zero experience with 3d software (I do however am quite comfortable with writing code).

For about the past one and a half years I've been messing about with and learning most of the stuff blender has to offer, ranging from just a couple of hours a week, to nothing at all, to every evening. The last 6 months or so of that has been spend creating an OC character completely from scratch (and the finish line is in sight jeej), of which some sort of diary is available here. I estimate that I can probably create new female characters up to this level somewhere within a couple weeks to 1~2 months depending on the amount of asset reuse.

Can all of this be learned faster than that? Yeah probably, I've bumbled about quite a bit and had plenty of dead ends and failed experiments. But I still think about a year/half a year would probably be a safe bet (also highly dependent on the amount of hours you can/are willing to make).

To make things from scratch you have to become familiar with all the technical know-how involved (topology, shading, UVs, physics?, etc), how all of that applies to blender, and the artistic stuff. The first and second are just lots of things to learn, remember and a bit of experience in how/when to apply. The artistic stuff, i found, is mostly about making hours. Really, you don't truly know what makes a face until you've made loads that look just a tad bit weird because the proportions aren't quite right, or the shapes aren't the way you meant them to be. Luckily for us stick-figure connoisseurs you can keep sculpting until you get it right (or horribly wrong) and looking back can usually reflect on what exactly was off.

I certainly wouldn't say it was easy for me, and i wouldn't recommend it if your only goal is to make some smut. But if you want to learn 3d modeling in general/have some fun/just pick up a new skill set? by all means, have a go at it.

 

[Emperor_Arcturus]

Let me preface this with the following: I absolutely can not draw even if my life would depend on it, and before blender had zero experience with 3d software (I do however am quite comfortable with writing code).

For about the past one and a half years I've been messing about with and learning most of the stuff blender has to offer, ranging from just a couple of hours a week, to nothing at all, to every evening. The last 6 months or so of that has been spend creating an OC character completely from scratch (and the finish line is in sight jeej), of which some sort of diary is available here. I estimate that I can probably create new female characters up to this level somewhere within a couple weeks to 1~2 months depending on the amount of asset reuse.

Can all of this be learned faster than that? Yeah probably, I've bumbled about quite a bit and had plenty of dead ends and failed experiments. But I still think about a year/half a year would probably be a safe bet (also highly dependent on the amount of hours you can/are willing to make).

To make things from scratch you have to become familiar with all the technical know-how involved (topology, shading, UVs, physics?, etc), how all of that applies to blender, and the artistic stuff. The first and second are just lots of things to learn, remember and a bit of experience in how/when to apply. The artistic stuff, i found, is mostly about making hours. Really, you don't truly know what makes a face until you've made loads that look just a tad bit weird because the proportions aren't quite right, or the shapes aren't the way you meant them to be. Luckily for us stick-figure connoisseurs you can keep sculpting until you get it right (or horribly wrong) and looking back can usually reflect on what exactly was off.

I certainly wouldn't say it was easy for me, and i wouldn't recommend it if your only goal is to make some smut. But if you want to learn 3d modeling in general/have some fun/just pick up a new skill set? by all means, have a go at it.

It's not to just make some smut lol, like I said I wanna make characters for my own game/s so I have a real goal, plus I wanna learn it cause it seems really cool and fun thing to do. Also yeah I actually checked out your post a day or two ago, was nice to see someone else learning Blender be able to make something that looked really good. As for learning, having an actual lesson/class thing to follow will probably help me to keep up with it and learn all the important bits too, plus also being able to go back and rewatch anything I forgot or am unsure about. Anyway, thanks for the info!

 

[Emperor_Arcturus]

Well I guess this has sorta turned into a place where I can talk about my journey now, or more accurately a place to brag lol. Anyway, day 2 and this is what I've made today, still got some work to do on painting and such, but still pretty proud I was able to make this!

 

[Emperor_Arcturus]

Round 2, finished coloring it and making it look pretty. Actually really happy with how it came out, think it'd be pretty cool little robot thing to use

 

[megaplayboy10k]

I'd expect learning Blender to take about as long as learning Maya, 3ds, or Cinema 4d. It's a "full-service" 3d modeling and animation program, unlike Poser or DAZ Studio.