Nothing wrong with doing tutorials, it wonât make you less creative, the most important is to practice a bit everyday.
At the begin you donât have to worry about originlity, creativity is nothing but the clever use of repertory, no one creates from nothing, we aways build upon the work the ones before us left. The âgreat mastersâ (painting) also learned their craft by copying their masters. So choose your masters and copy them, for practice, of course.
Tutorials are a really good way to get to know the software language/intarface/tools, and you wanna get that out of the way to better express yourself anyway. But in parallel to that you should do âyour thingâ. Doesnât have to be nothing fancy, try to do things simillar to the ones that you like (game characters, movie scenes, art style, etc) and within time you will develop your style. And try out every possibility of the 3D world: modeling, sculpting, retopo, texturing, painting, rigging, animating.
So to me these are the 3 goas: Learn the tools, keep doing your thing even though you donât know what that is yet and try out everything to develop your skills and find out what you like most.
But the most important, as I said before, is to practice everyday. So be cool and just keep doing it. And good luck on your journey.
The first thing Iâd ask is: Are you enjoying it? - if you are, then great! Keep doing what youâre already doing.
Itâs very easy with Blender to try and dive right into the deep end, only to forget that you canât swim, and youâve forgotten your arm bands. Of course, for some people, this method works just fine too - so it really is up to you.
You can learn an awful lot from tutorials, and as I started with, if youâre happy doing that for the time being, then donât be in any rush to stop. Thereâs no clock, so to speak.
Youâll probably know when youâre ready to do more, when the tutorials start becoming easier. When shortkeys, and tools etc⌠become easier to remember, and you find yourself following the tutorial less and less.
Of course, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from starting your own projects now, and learning as you go. Just realise that, if you need help, or look for a tutorial, there might not be a specific thing to help, and youâll have to use ideas as a basis - If that makes sense.
So really, itâs entirely up to you, and what you are comfortable with. There is no right or wrong answer here.
And, expect to very-reguarly âtake a sip from the fire hoseâ as you feel once again that the software has hit you in the face with a hot cast-iron skillet. (Because, I guarantee you, âcomputer softwareâ is incredibly good at that âŚ)
One thing that has helped me greatly is: âa loose-leaf notebook and a number-two pencil.â Whenever I encounter yet-another thing that I do not understand, I immediately write it down. Now that âthe butterfly has been stuck-through with a pin and attached to the board,â I know that I cannot lose it ⌠and that I do not have to deal with it âright now.â I can record the fact that the white-rabbit existed but I do not have to chase after it ⌠yet.
I leave space in the same notebook for me to later write down notes about what the solution actually was â and how I found it.
âMy memory is not what it used to be,â so I continue to use that notebook as a resource.
In the same notebook I often also keep a âCaptainâs Log.â I write down, extemporaneously, what I am doing and what I am thinking â every single day. (It later makes for quite interesting reading.)