I brought this question up in IRC and someone had pointed to these forums, so, hello!
I have been wondering if there is a website (or a need for one) that will let folks upload reference images of an object, and have people submit their attempts to model that object in Blender.
The site would be similar to programming websites like leetcode (https://leetcode.com/problemset/all/), or exercism (https://exercism.io/), where a problem is presented, and coders submit their solutions to that problem, the benefit being that folks can see other people’s solutions for the sake of learning and mentorship.
My thinking is that a site like this for Blender would create a place where people could learn from other Blender artists and get a chance to level up their skills by focusing on modeling different reference images, and seeing how others do it as well.
What do you think? Someone mentioned that there is the Challenges sub-forum. They definitely satisfy the need, but are a little open ended and aren’t geared towards specific reference images (at least from what I saw).
Another thought I had was: a lot of new Blender artists want to learn how to do things in Blender, not necessarily what. So if they were to open up someone else’s blender file of a super well-done model of a retro TV, for example, they may not get as much learning as they would if they had watched someone model that TV from start to finish. I’m not sure how the website would address this. But I think sometimes the what is equally important - model shapes, materials, etc… Can all be new and interesting to a new Blender artist.
If there was enough of a need for this I would definitely consider building it!