You need to use templates and you don’t want to use templates any more? I am having a difficult time understanding how to help, here. :spin:
There are already a huge number of YouTube and Vimeo introductions to Blender. Blender Cookie has a good introductory series(disclaimer: The folks at Blender Cookie run this site…), but if you search for “Blender Introduction Tutorial” you’ll get a whole lot more.
I do recommend the Blender Cookie tutorials, though, for a quick introduction.