Hello everyone! So glad to be here (:
This will be my place to document my own journey in Blender 
Excited to get better, connect with people and grow.
Current update for thumbnail:
Here’s a try on a dragon with sculpting, a lot to learn
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Long time no post, want to change that
Have been feeling unmotivated because of my lack of progress which isn’t exactly intelligent, since then I won’t make any progress at all… right? 
This forum inspires me to just keep swimming, so here we go.
WIPs of two models (key and stag), I’d like to use the key for a dragon (sketch below)
Oh my, I don’t like non-organic modelling and absolutely suck at it, buttt learning!
Early stages of sculpting, trying out to have separate objects in the beginning and then merging
Sketch for the stag sculpt
Rough sketch for dragon and key in Krita
Ideas for a … goat horse?
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These are incredible sketches! 
I’d love to see where this journey takes you.
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Thank you so much! Yes, no clue yet how to transfer my ideas into 3D, but excited to learn
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What marvelous sketches!
Yeah, gotta keep swimming, even if one dog paddles when things get tough. 
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Little update on the stag, thinking about what to learn with this sculpt:
- Good looking, basic lighting with a simple background (gradient?)
- Simple but good looking material for eyes, fur, snout - so I need different materials and a way to assign those materials
- Clean UV map
- bake normals for the high details after sculpting
- Don’t get lost in details, get it finished, learn and move on
Currently remeshing while sculpting and focusing on really spending the most time in low poly.
Really glad I found this community here. I’ve been neglecting my dreams for so long and searched for excuses (too old, no talent, whatever) but the forum def inspires me and gives me hope to just continue, learn in an efficient way and stop being afraid to share. 
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Final update for today, things I’m noticing
- creating the antlers was a mess; tried the technique with skin modifier which worked fine; discovered the inflate brush far too late for width, still needs a lot of work
- I don’t know if I should leave the water line as is or as a separate mesh for its own material (wet)
- don’t know yet how to model the eyes (even though I wanted to sculpt something simple, but I dont want to leave them as is)
- I’d like to pose the model in the end for the render, nothing too complicated
If I look at everything I want to learn + the image I have in mind for the stag I get overwhelmed. But focusing on babysteps def helps. 
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Oh ghods yes, so much this. To help adjust my attitude I am learning to appreciate what I do now in and of itself, even though that is light years away from the dreams dancing around in my head. I think it might be extra difficult (maybe for you too) because my internal imagery is often quite ethereal, and what I can produce right now has clumsy clay feet firmly planted in the ground. If it even has feet at all.
We’ll get there as long as we continue. Having watched some other people’s long-term learning journey has convinced me of that. I think your stag looks already closer to your main sketch.
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Thank you! Yes, absolutely - the image I hold in my head has nothing to do with what I can do right now, but I’m tired of quitting because of that.
Appreciating what one can do right now - that’s def something I need to work on, hah. Again, thank you! It’s always a relief to hear that others have similar thoughts/patterns while learning.
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Alright, update on the stag…
Reworked the model because of some valuable feedback. Needed to listen and realize some things:
- Even though my ultimate goal is to model fantasy creatures, it needs to be rooted in realism if I want to create something that is believable
- If my prior sketch isnt anatomically correct, my model won’t be either
- Next time do your research before drawing concepts, think about the environment the creature lives in etc
- don’t panic when receiving critique, I need critique in order to achieve anything
Still full of self doubt and worries about if I’m able to learn the next steps (Mari, rigging, lighting… everything?) but I’ll get there.
Worked on the stag with better references today, focused on more realism first, quick retopo and now working on Multires. Next step are final details (need to do some research first) and then UVmapping, basic rigging for posing, texturing, lighting and rendering.
Welcome to “out of my comfort zone” 
I think my plan will be to duplicate this model and do a version thats nearer to my inital sketch, but this time with a realistic base. So I can learn to draw my sketches loosely but still have semirealism.
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Should do something entirely different atm, but can’t stop.
Currently learning
- how UDIMs work and how they should be laid out for Mari (still not so sure, will see once I start learning the texturing part)
- succesfully created UVs and copied them onto the multiresh mesh, yay for a small win
- still unsure about all the seams but will see once in texturing phase; as far as I understand I’m able to paint over UDIMs in mari
- not very good loops around the eyes, will manually retopo next time (and learn how to do that in blender)
Next step: finish sculpting, model eyes and then off to learning the basics of texturing
So much to learn but right now every hard thing is exciting, this is new for me
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Something different in the meantime:
Started to work through “Picture This”, taking notes and letting myself think through what I read. Really interesting, seems simple but is eye-opening.
Also started to look into various topics like lighting, colors etc, everything I can find really. The internet can be such a great place. Problem is, I still don’t understand anything of what I’m reading (esp regarding color management, LUTS, why it’s important to be consistent in the pipeline, what the difference between linear display and linear scene is and what linear even really means) but I kind of love that there is so much I don’t know yet. Of course that can be frustrating, esp since I’m not a math head or a technical person in general, but its even more satisfying when I can grasp some little things after a while.
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I LOVE seeing your thought process here! My inability to sketch like that is seriously holding me back. This may be a silly question, but how did you learn how to sketch so well?
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Thank you! Def not a silly question. What helps me with drawing is something I need to do more of: Learning to observe (there is a great video from Flippednormals on this topic) and just practicing with classic drawing books like Bammes and other books, there are so many.
There is a great and affordable online art school (artwod.com). But I can’t really give advice since I lack so many skills which I want to improve on. I’d suggest just watching traditional artists (Florent Farges has a great youtube channel for that and is a fantastic artist).
Sorry for the wall of text. 
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Wow. You are truly remarkably talented. Thanks for sharing this, this will be very helpful for me!
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While I have a different opinion about my “talent” 
I absolutely appreciate your comments and feedback! Your other post somewhere in the forum gave me the needed push to pick up “Picture this”.
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Alright, update on the stag. Learning a lot, like a lot lot. Head feels like its going to explode, but its a good sort of “pain”.
- sculpted until multires level 4, stopped there (still wished I knew how to really get more details, but next time)
- watched tutorial on rigging, did a simple rig
- learned to weight paint, still faaar from perfect but wanted to really push through today
- posed him a bit, corrected some weight issues in the meantime, bouncing between posed and rest pose (still dont know what any of the other settings in Armature etc mean)
Researched quite a bit beforehand about stags, their antlers etc. Realizing just how important research is.
Next steps:
- Clean up weight painting some more → for that do more extreme poses to see errors easier
- be brave and start texturing/learning to texture
- watch tutorials/learn how to light this thing after texturing
- maybe learn how to do a simple shapekey for breathing / eye closed, so I can animate some simple keyframes (simple she says, hah…)
- render
- profit
Oh my word, so much I don’t know yet, still. But I’m a tiny bit more assured that I can learn all of this, in time, so I can some day look back at this as the starting days when I finally decided to take this journey seriously. So, so thankful for this community. Never took myself serious, never practiced, and became more depressed as time went on, whenever I saw others doing animated films.
Onto the next steps
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So much this. It might even sound counter-intuitive if one’s not experienced it yet, but knowing how the real thing works makes it in the end easier to create something imaginary that’s evocative of it. And maybe more importantly, it will make the imaginary feel real to others, like it could really exist, exactly like that, no matter how fanciful. Most of us have a finely honed sense of the real, even if we have no art education, and we sense when something is off (the uncanny valley stretches quite far and has a lot of side valleys).
You’re learning a lot; way cool! And the stag shows it.
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Yes, absolutely. I wasted so much time not working with references. When I think about it, it’s not only about using references - I never really did my research. Its the same with the stag. My initial sketch was in no way grounded in reality (looking at you, antlers as eyebrows), so now I’m excited to re-draw the sketch with the new information I have.
Realizing that this goes for every other field I’m “dabbling” in, too. No matter if its music or writing. How does the saying go? You have to learn the rules in order to break them? I definitely didn’t lack feedback or people that kindly told me over and over again - I have the often times annoying trait of being extremely stubborn.
Sometimes (more often than I think) it’s better to listen.
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