Small Project Suggestions for new Blender Users?

I’m just getting into blender and I was hoping I could get a few suggestions as to small projects for a novice. I’ve done the good ol’ table & chairs and that kind of thing, but where do I go between them and massive architectural renderings, for example?

I basically pick a feature that interests me and then find all the info i can on it…then mess around with it until i can make something cool. I started with Dynamic Paint which is amazing and a lot of fun…makes learning less painful.

That would be my suggestion though…pick something and then research it and then practice until you rock at it.

That sounds cool, thanks. I have an itching feeling that if I did that I’d end up doing a ton pf physics simulations :stuck_out_tongue:

One of my earlier projects was a treasure box. I modeled an old cigar box (the texture for the interior of the lid took forever, I had to duplicate it in inkscape…) and then I put in some things I either had or imagined I had in it. A bosun’s pipe, a ring, a key. The challenge was getting the stuff to look photorealistic. That might be somewhat easier these days with cycles, but this was back when Blender Internal render was it.

I would go to college. No, really, I would. Did you know that Tufts has a course in their Open Courseware for Blender 2.6?

I worked with the older course a while back, but I had Blender 2.6 and the class then was for version 2.4 They updated the course for 2013 to reflect Blender 2.6’s changes, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding the things they talk about (I had to stop the 2.4 version of this course because I could not find the tools and stuff in Blender 2.6)

Here’s the class: http://ocw.tufts.edu/Course/71/Coursehome

They also have a class on Introduction to Game development from 2012: http://ocw.tufts.edu/Course/75 but most of the rest of their courses are on healthcare and medical stuff.

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If you’re just wanting project suggestions is all, I would suggest a lamp for that table and chair. You can play with various lamp shapes and styles and learn more about lighting a scene with the different types of light sources and how to change the light color and effects. Flashlights laying on floors are a lot of fun too.