Hard Surface Modeling

The first part of the Blender Guru Academy covers Hard Surface Modeling. The techniques taught here are ideal for boxy objects — vehicles, weapons, robots, buildings, and so on. They won't let you model everything, but you can get surprisingly far with them.

This wasn't my first time encountering these techniques, so it served more as a refresher. During the course you model a crate, and at the end you can challenge yourself by picking from a few subjects that Andrew Price proposes.

The crate

Rendering is still a struggle. I feel like I'm making random decisions, but it's also not where I've spent most of my time in Blender yet. I'm looking forward to that part of the course and to eventually revisiting these models with proper lighting and materials.

For the challenge, I picked my first console.

The PlayStation 1

I'm happy with both results and learned a lot from the challenge. Following tutorials always feels too easy — forcing yourself to figure things out on your own is what truly tests what you've learned. I re-did the side panel multiple times, and working from a real object forced me to slow down and observe every little detail. I still noticed some discrepancies with the reference, but it's good enough to move on.

Next up is Smooth Surface Modeling. I'm nearing the end of that section and can already tell this course alone was worth it. Before, I struggled to even imagine how to approach modeling certain objects. Now, even though working on your own is still a challenge, I have the tools to make it happen.