Now that I have managed to get the background image in, I can finally begin to model my first object. My “mentor, guru guy” has given in to my supplications and given me my first object. Ready, steady, GO!
There is no cube staring at me this time. It is gone. It was deleted as part of the preparation process.
The first object I have to model is not that complicated for the average Blender person but for me it took some careful thinking before I could start. It is basically a cube that has extrusions from some of the sides.
I sit in front of the computer screen looking at the empty viewport. I am experiencing a brain freeze. I don’t know where to start. It reminds me of those times when you lie on your back in the countryside staring at the night sky. The universe is filled with billions of tiny bright stars. It is hypnotic and mesmerizing. It is impossible to grasp the magnitude of what you are seeing.
So, it was for me while staring into the abyss of the computer screen.
“Hey!! Wake up”, a very familiar voice nags me. “Think about what you want to do”. I came out of a daze with a huge fright looking around for the owner of that voice. Of course, it was only the voice of my “mentor, guru guy” in my head spurring me on but scary nevertheless.
So, the hunt for a solution begins. I search and search for hours trying to find a way to do a custom shape in Blender. I try this way and that way, but nothing seems to work the way I want it to work. Eventually, I realize my approach is wrong. My brain is scattered. Brain cells are running around like shooting stars in that night sky. I am not thinking carefully about what I want to achieve. I need to plan the steps I need to take to complete this seemingly very simple object.
Now I am going to war with this custom shape. I put on my armor and my creative hat. It is a weird-looking dress code, but it fits with my mission.
I find out there are different modeling techniques. I need to choose the one that suits me best which in this case would be box modeling. I start by adding a cube to the scene. I scale the cube to the correct size, or as close as possible since this is not a precision model. I make use of tools such as the Extrusion tool and LoopCuts to remodel the cube into the shape that is required. I then bevel the edges.
I won the battle, but the war was far from over. I was only able to do this small object, but it was an accomplishment, nevertheless.
Feeling very proud of myself, my head back up in the clouds, and standing tall, I took my first object to my “mentor, guru guy”. He had a smirk on his face. I know he was proud of me, but he had to burst my bubble. “That is good, but do you see that shimmering face on the object? Go fix it. It must be smooth!!”
It turns out I had duplicate vertices and edges in the object, and this caused the object to have shadows and strange artifacts all over it.
I had to crawl back to the drawing board and find a way to fix these errors. I must have done one object over 100 times. Exaggeration, I know, but that is what it felt like.
This is where Blender and the 3D journey gets interesting. Look out for the next post where I will share the struggles of creating this one object in more detail.