Hello all i hope am posting this in the right section
I was wondering what is the best way to get better at blender meaning how can i increase the quality of my art work.
so far i have just been mainly imagining a scene and then creating it but it all ways doesn’t look the way i imagined it or it doesn’t look real. really if am honest i think that the best result i have is when i have studied a photograph and then create it with that photograph as a reference. so do you think that looking at a photograph and recreating it in blender is a good way to get more realistic scene form when i go to do it from my mind or not.
Sorry if i have waffled on i don’t mean to so basically what i am trying to say what are some of the best techniques and practices to increase the quality of your art work.
It all comes down to practice, talent and a lot of hard work. My advice to you would be to check out some of the Blender cookie’s videos as well as Andrew Prices’s.
There really is no substitue for simply doing something. Each time I want to learn something new, I go over and over the process until it becomes second nature, that then frees your mind up to think creatively rather than about the mechanics of what you are doing.
There’s a saying about playing guitar, practice, practice, practice… Then, when you are done, practice some more.
Daft thing is, it is true, once you are comfortable with building things, it starts to really come together. Also, try to see if you can create the same thing by doing it in various ways, figure out what works, what doesn’t, what is better is some cases and so forth.
Case in point, you can build a really basic table using cubes, then detail the legs, you can do that in one mesh, or multiple meshes, using mirror, using scale from a centre point and flipping polys, move individual faces / vertexs or scale parts of geometry. Get familiar with all of it and you give yourself the ability to switch when you need to.
Sounds arduous, but honestly, with, literally a handful of commands and shortcuts, you can do a huge amount of work.
Given that how the objects are modeled is important (beveled edges to reflect the light, well-polished surfaces where necessary, etc.), what makes the difference are materials and lighting, so you need to learn from observing how different materials behave in reality and try to reproduce them, and you have to learn from pictures and tutorials how to effectively use the light.
Since you are attempting to make art why not learn the basic rules of composition, line, key, etc. All of that is available on The Net. Then block in your vision in Blender or actually using a pencil and paper. Then when you have the placement and basic shapes pinned down go looking for reference photographs which more or less suit what you have in mind.
Unless you take your own reference photographs they are never going to be exactly right. Not to worry that is where you the artist come in. With placement, size and everything that goes into a composition then comes the modeling, texturing, lighting, etc. We all have a tendency to rush in putting the cart before the horse. Sometimes we get lucky then many times we don’t. The rules of art and design are not rocket science and you might enjoy the study. And, enjoy your artistic endeavors even more with the work reflecting the effort.
Also be prepared to show your work and accept constructive criticism with an open mind. Learn from what others think of your work, but at the same time, stick to your own vision.
Talking about render/postpro, best thing to do is to practise combining render passes, not your render engine tricks. Once you master it, you can shut off individual lights, clear object(s) shadows you dont want to show, change hue/saturation of your selected objects etc.
Thank you every one for all of the advice i kind of came to a stand still with my learning of blender after a year i kind of ran out of tutorials and blogs and all that other good stuff. But no thank you all for all the information i will put it to good use
