While it’s easy to find tips to improve in 5 minutes on the web, it’s a bit harder to find quality content that you can really grow from once you pass the basics, but it exists !
But first, what should be considered advanced content in the first place, or advanced content makers ?
I’m sure different people will have different opinions, and it’s probably a mix of things…
After some thoughts, some key points for me when looking for these resources :
Producing educational content isn’t their main activity.
They are more creators than tutors.
They have an online portfolio.
They are working in the entertainment or art industry.
They have several years / decades of practice in their craft.
Obviously good content doesn’t always check all those, but you’ll see that they probably have the majority. Anyway , with that in the way, I’m happy to discuss that further and in the meantime let’s post resources you like ! Here is some of mine :
And that’s already a good start !
I added a lot of stuff that revolves around light, composition, concept art but feel free to post what’s interest you ! I’m super thrilled to see what this is about !
He has amazing artwork and some breakdowns and way of thinking
As for anyone reading this: do not stay in Blender bubble! Official Zbrush channel on YT has awesome streams, various artists showing thier workflow. Of course you won’t be able to do the same in Blender 1:1 with same tools but there is ton of things you can adjust for Blender and think outside of the box
I agree with you on this, the most advanced creators are building something but if you are lucky you can find a few that are sharing their process. Sadly these people don’t get as much exposure online because people are looking for specific solutions to a specific problem.
It’s also available on Udemy if you prefer ad free and around £300 worth of rigged robot (but you’ll build your own in the course anyway, so youtube is fine
@Dexter411 this Jared Chavez’s breakdown is definitely the kind of content I’d like to see here. I really like that it show the process and the thought process in the meantime ! Thanks !
@Michael_Campbell, this looks good too but to me it’s more on the beginner side even if the tools and techniques in themselves are quite advanced. Now since you are a long time blender/3D user, let me ask you, can you share some CG artists/resource that you find inspiring nowadays ? What kind of content are you watching in order to keep making progress ?
Welp, looks like today I’m going to restore my lost resource library instead of whatever I was planning to do =D That’s a lot of interesting content.
The main thing for me, is that they explain their line of thought instead of showing the tools. It’s fine if they happen to be an experimenting hobbyist as long as they explain what they are attempting.
For example, when looking for intermediate/advanced rigging solutions, it would inevitably lead you to Maya tutorials… which should be completely fine at intermediate level, but oftentimes they don’t explain the principles behind mechanisms and it turns into “push this button, set this value to 0.5”. So you end up having to reverse-engineer a tutorial (only to find out that the core principle was not suited to your use-case in the first place)!
But I guess, most of people who have arcane knowledge are too busy, so it’s an endless hunt for an occasional article or a demonstration.
Yes you’re right ! I’ve over-simplified my statement by mentioning professionals. It’s just that if you’re working in the industry or you’re producing advanced art stuff yourself, you tend to approach teaching differently and there is more purpose / fundamental stuff in what you teach ! That’s part of what I find missing in content from people that are primarily educators. From there, there are amazing hobbyist that are way better than many professionals so it’s obviously more subtle !
Yes I think it’s a mix of different factors, but I prefer to see the glass half full and I’m sure there is already a lot to learn with what’s out there especially if we put some of it in the same place ! Anyway, looking forward to see your selection I’m sure it’s going to be great !
And in the meantime, if someone is after something specific don’t hesitate to ask because that might sparks some ideas !
And also Kris Costa (The Antropus) started to upload some of his old courses completely free on youtube, these are an amazing resource for sculpting and 3d portrait creation: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAntropusChannel/videos
It is actually not easy to produce “good” educational content. Lots of well-meaning people record themselves doing something and put it up on YouTube, but it’s very difficult to follow and they move too fast. They are fluent at what they are demonstrating, but that’s not the same as teaching it.
Thanks. The first playlist is aimed at complete newbs, but I’d still recommend even professionals watch through it, because as it progresses, there’s a lot of information in there that even the most advanced professionals may not fully understand. I’d been working in 3d for around 20 years when I made the course, and as I created it, fact checking for accuracy, I found my understanding of certain concepts and tools wasn’t as thorough as I thought, or that there were much easier ways of doing things.
I don’t really watch courses and tutorials anymore, instead I’ve moved primarily into writing tools to automate or improve my own workflows. My most popular tool is Turbo Tools, which speeds up the entire rendering and post production workflow. It’s doing really well, with over 4000 users in 150+ countries.
When I first moved to Blender from Houdini, zbrush, mudbox, 3ds Max, etc (the usual suspects), I watched the Blender Guru videos, to learn how Blender did things. It was a great starting point, because I already had a solid understanding of 3d, but one of the reasons I made the course was to help people avoid the problem of not knowing which videos are suitable based on their existing knowledge. The course is structured so the knowledge you need for each video has already been introduced earlier in the course, which also means you aren’t wasting time learning the same concepts over and over just to get to the new bit of knowledge you need (as is the case when hopping between multiple tutorials spread across various YouTube channels).
Though on a sidenote, I must ask: Do you guys actually have time for this shit?
To be frank, while I don’t want to argue there’s amazing stuff out there, in practice I (as a hobbyist) have stopped giving a damn about learning resources and tutorials and whatnot as soon as I knew enough about all this to walk by myself, so to speak.
Between my dayjob and stuff I’m glad if I find the time and energy to try to push forward what it is I’m trying to achieve.
I have zero time on my hands to really watch through youtube playlists, no matter how insightfull they presumably are.
The matter of the fact is I have most of what was linked in the OP somewhere open in a separate tab right now. And I’ve been kind of meaning to look at it sometime. For many months, that is. And it sits there among literally a four digit number of open tabs with other stuff (much of which reference images dug up on flickr and elsewhere).
And what has always struck me as odd and seemed very alien to me is this whole concept of ‘training’ in the context of CGI I continue to hear people talk about. It’s not a gym! It’s not about what you’re bench pressing, really.
Yes, I guess for some specific crafts somewhere inbetween drawing, things related to anatomy, sculpting and animation mainly you probably do significantly improve by way of,- well, repetition and exercise - I suppose, but I still think this talk about ‘training’ in the field of CG and stuff is somewhat absurd to me.
To me, growing is something plants, fingernails and hairstrands do.
I guess it depends on what you’re learning for. As someone that does this for a living I can totally see the need and the value in learning some of these advanced techniques, because you literally need to, in order to be employable.
When some techniques and workflows become part of what everyone is doing in the industry you cannot afford to not study them and learn them through repetition. Also, knowing the theory behind some of these techniques also can help to find creative ways to solve problems when you don’t have the time, the budget, or the man power to follow these techniques exactly.
On the other hand, if I was a hobbyist, I’d definitely stop looking at educational content when I reached a “good enough” level, and would be more concerned with exploration and coming up with different ways to do things just for fun and curiosity.
The sweet middle point IMO is a mix of both, where you learn from others that already mastered a certain sub-topic (animation, sculpting, texturing, etc), but also try to carve enough time to explore and play with things, that always leads to fun and interesting discoveries.
Yes absolutely, I’m, personally more looking for youtube video or online reading stuff, but I have a few best-sellers in my library that is probably worth talking about too !
Ultimately I find super cool if people share what inspired them or helped them to progress. And I’m glad if this evolves in a different way as long as the main idea remains !
Now to answer your question :
I think it really depends on what you’re after. Personally I’m not constantly looking after new things to learn. As you said and I totally agree with you : it’s not about how much content you can ingest daily that is going to make you a better artist, and is it something you’re looking for in the first place ?
But I’m also really enjoying learning. Generally I revolve around a subject for some time (6 mounts ↔ 5 years) and then move on to something else. These last years I studied geometry nodes a lot but I also feel I was lacking in image composition and I’d like also to work more on massive environments.
Therefore I watched some videos on composition ( most of which I posted here) I also studied a few movies/series doing small thumbnails on shot I found interesting. I’m also trying to apply that knowledge when I do review on the focused critique section or elsewere. And things starts to click a bit better. It’s not that I’m constantly studying that, but sometime I have a bit more time, a bit more motivation and eventually I make small progress. Sometimes I also watch a video at lunch time instead of watching the news or else.
Obviously I try to practice and this helps a lot too, but it’s way more involved for me.
Problem is that for now I spend way too much time on technical stuff in my projects and when I came to actually do more artistic stuff I kinda quickly get lost.
But that’s very personal and I think everyone should do as they like and no-one is forced to make progress or keep studying. It’s just that I enjoy learning, I’m not always in a mood for personal projects and I enjoy watching content like you can enjoy a series or else Also I didn’t had real artistic training so I’m catching up with that in order to get jobs that aren’t completely technical or a bit more involved artistically.
I usually have time, but zero patience/discipline/focus - I just can’t sit through a tutorial. But I like to be able to look up information when I need it.
However, the internet is saturated with “begginer tutorials” to the top, and it’s hard to find something more advanced on a whim.
So you have to be on the look out for valuable stuff that you might need later.
Regarding Anatomy for Sculptors recommendation, here’s their Artstation, which has some illustrations from the books:
Another thing I found useful is “3D Scan Store” (I think they are the ones that provided scans for Anatomy for Sculptors). It has a ton of scans of various human types.
Not something I could spend any money on as a hobbyist, but there are high-quality images in each item description that can be used for reference - with Matcap and Textured views:
I absolutely understand you and your point of view. As hobbyist it’s hard to find time.
However, since you brought out gym comparison, you can go to a gym and do the same thing ober and over but after a while you will maintain your shape, muscles won’t grow and all that. So my question is: are you okey with that? If yes, than great! If no, you need to push further to gain more muscle.
For CG it’s similar, at some point, you know this and that and you can make lovely art/models but you won’t grow much by doing same thing over and over, without learning new things and without challenging yourself.
Yes, absolutely. I guess its also a bit a matter of personal preference maybe.
Me I have a strong inclination to blindly follow my gut sense or my artistic instincts or whatever you want to call it, wrt. many of the more ‘artistic’ (or lack of a better word) choices.
Specifically with things like framing, image composition, cinematography and such, I tend to trust my eye and make it such that it ‘looks right’, rather than trying to apply textbook-knowledge. And I dare say that usually works well for me. It’s probably a matter of I’ve watched so many movies in my life, my brain kinda internalized it…
tangentially related (at best) ramblings about dreams
On a sidenote, occasionally I dream something at night, wake up, remember some of it and think to myself: ‘Now that was some brilliant mis-en-scéne and cinematography in that one scene of that dream I just had’.
It never ceases to amaze me how that weird state of mind we’re in while we dream at night somehow makes us a masterful cinematographer.
I understand what you mean, and I do agree. On the other hand, personally, I don’t need to challenge myself to anything ever, the challenges find me by themselves!
Its not like there was a dichotonomy between stagnation and actively devoting time to some bootcamp-drill.
I guess in a sense I am put off by this talk about ‘training’ largely because I reek the underpinnings of neoliberal selfoptimization and commercialization of free time this has (by the way just like gyms do).
I already assumed so.
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Mostly Houdini, but also Blender:
(Probably well known by anyone in a thread like this): https://entagma.com/
Anything filmmaking-related from a to z:
(In recent years unfortunately increasingly plagued with pseudo-editorial-product-placement type posts along the lines of ‘the best series to watch on streamingplatform XY in april’.)
Also I didn’t had real artistic training so I’m catching up with that in order to get jobs that aren’t completely technical or a bit more involved artistically.
