6 Years of Blender in 13 Minutes

Summary

In this candid video, Kaizen shares his six-year journey with Blender, charting the ups and downs of mastering 3D art. Starting from scratch, Kaizen's exploration details both the setbacks and triumphs that shaped his path to becoming a full-time 3D creator. He reflects on his transition from 2D to 3D, the challenges of balancing life with learning, and ultimately finding his niche in teaching Blender online, reaching over 200,000 followers. Kaizen concludes with insights on maintaining passion amidst turning a hobby into a career.

Highlights

• Year 1: Kaizen's initial exploration of Blender was filled with challenges, including a discouraging start and a temporary halt to his 3D journey 🎢.
• Year 2: He decided to pursue a career in the gaming industry, leading to a deeper dive into essential 3D skills and community support 🔍📚.
• By year 3, juggling life's demands led to another break until the pressure of a competition reignited his dedication 🔄.
• Year 4 marked a pivotal change as Kaizen pivoted towards teaching Blender, blending his love for education and 3D art 🧑‍🏫.
• In Year 5, as a full-time creator, Kaizen focused on tutorials, which opened doors for commercial collaborations 🎥💼.
• Entering year 6, Kaizen aims to balance his career in teaching with rediscovering his personal passion for Blender 🔄❤️.

Key Takeaways

• Don't rush the basics; they are crucial for growth 🚀.
• Connect with a community. Shared goals mean shared success 👥.
• Continuous learning keeps you ahead. Never stop evolving 📚.
• Blender is a powerful tool, but the results matter more than the tool itself 🛠️.
• Balancing passion and career is tricky, take care of your creativity 🌟.
• Online presence can create unexpected professional opportunities 🌐.

Overview

The journey with Blender began with Kaizen falling in love with 3D art despite initial setbacks. In his early days, the learning curve was steep and discouraging, leading to a temporary abandonment of his 3D endeavors. However, inspiration from the art community and industry insights spurred him back into action by year two, highlighting the importance of mastering the basics and reaching out for community support.

By the middle of his journey, Kaizen faced time management challenges that tested his dedication to Blender. Despite these setbacks, a structured challenge helped rekindle his enthusiasm, leading to a newfound focus on creating and teaching Blender online. The shift to education in year four allowed him to merge his passion for teaching with 3D, successfully building an online presence that expanded his opportunities.

Now in his sixth year, Kaizen reflects on the delicate balance between maintaining his passion and managing a career built on it. Having grown a significant following and professional network, he continues to explore Blender's evolving landscape, aiming to reconnect with his love for the platform. With this ongoing journey, Kaizen exemplifies how personal drive and adaptability can lead to profound career transformations.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Year 1: Getting Started with Blender The introduction chapter covers the author's journey over six years since they began using Blender, a 3D modeling software. Initially, they experimented with vertices to create unseen art and have since transitioned to working full-time as a 3D Creator. The author promises to share their experiences, including early mistakes, insights on what they'd do differently, and the successful steps they took in their career path. Specifically, the chapter focuses on the first year, where the author committed to learning 3D modeling and rendering.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Year 2: Overcoming Challenges and Learning the Basics In Year 2: Overcoming Challenges and Learning the Basics, the narrator discusses their journey in learning 3D design software. They explore the use of Cinema 4D, Maya, and Blender, finally settling on Blender because it was free and sufficient for their needs at the time. Although Blender 2.79 had its limitations compared to current versions, the narrator's proficiency in Adobe software and 2D art made the transition manageable. Their experience underscores the importance of flexibility and willingness to learn when tackling new challenges.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Year 3: Facing Burnout and Rediscovering Motivation The chapter titled 'Year 3: Facing Burnout and Rediscovering Motivation' discusses the challenges and frustrations experienced while learning the basics of 3D design. The narrator admits to making a major mistake by not mastering the fundamentals, resulting in painfully slow progress, where even simple tasks took hours to complete. Despite this, they remained stubbornly committed to improving by drawing inspiration from external sources, specifically a show they were watching, and used that to create an artwork. The resulting piece took several weeks to complete and involved basic geometric shapes like cylinders and cubes. The narrator reflects on the artwork, acknowledging that while it's not terrible, it's also not particularly impressive.
• 05:00 - 08:00: Year 4: Transitioning to Teaching and Online Presence The author discusses their struggles in learning 3D modeling using Blender during their first year. Despite usually acquiring skills quickly, they found the transition from 2D to 3D art challenging and discouraging, leading them to temporarily abandon Blender and return to playing video games. They emphasize that even renowned artists began with subpar work and that excellence requires significant time and effort.
• 08:00 - 12:00: Year 5: Going Professional and Building a Career The chapter "Year 5: Going Professional and Building a Career" discusses the protagonist's transition into professional life. Initially, there is an understanding that expertise and excellence don't come immediately but require effort and perseverance. The narrative focuses on the second year of this journey, where dissatisfaction with the current job prompts the protagonist to pursue a career in the gaming industry. Recognizing the need for connections, the protagonist reaches out to friends and acquaintances working in AAA game studios, identifying opportunities at companies like Gorilla Games. However, this ambition comes with challenges, specifically anxiety and self-doubt concerning the tools used professionally, as industry standards often favored software like Maya over Blender, which the protagonist was accustomed to using.
• 12:00 - 13:00: Year 6: Reflection and Future Goals The chapter discusses the importance of focusing on results rather than the specific tools used in 3D artistry. It illustrates a personal journey of deciding between industry-standard tools like 3ds Max and more niche options like Blender. The narrative emphasizes that foundational skills in one tool can make learning others easier, drawing parallels to the transition from physical to digital art. The message concludes with the realization that adaptability and skill development are more important than the specific technologies mastered.

6 Years of Blender in 13 Minutes Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 it's been 6 years since I first booted blunder and fell in love with 3D it all started pushing around vertices trying to make art which no one saw to where I am now working as a full-time 3D Creator in this video I'll be sharing my experience over these six years going over what I did to get to where I am today things like what mistakes I made in the early days what I do differently if I could do it again plus most importantly what I did right that got me to where I am now and believe me there's a lot so for year 1 I set out to learn 3D modeling and rendering and I learned
• 00:30 - 01:00 pretty quickly that most people use Maya Cinema 4D or blender to do this now I personally like Cinema 4D since I knew it had Integrations with After Effects and at the time I was already pretty good at using Adobe software but so yeah blender it was at the time blender 2.79 was the latest version it was rough on the edges compared to today but it got the job done and at least it was free which was good enough for me since I was already pretty good with 2D art and design I figured there was no
• 01:00 - 01:30 need for me to learn the basics in 3D which honestly was my first major mistake progress was super slow and even the most basic of tasks would take me hours but stubborn as I was I just put my head down and kept at it I can just take my inspiration from a show I was watching and use that to create an artwork yeah so this took me literal weeks to do and it's basically just a few cylinders extruded cubes in a plane or two now is it a terrible artwork no I don't think think so but it's also not
• 01:30 - 02:00 the best and definitely not seeing how much time I put in I usually pick up skills quite fast so struggling this much to create something this simple and finding out creating a 3D is nothing like 2D honestly discouraged me a lot so much so that I gave up on blender for the rest of year 1 and went back to just playing video games instead it's worth noting though that even the biggest artists out there started with some terrible terrible artworks no one is born an award-winning artist it always takes tons of time and effort so don't
• 02:00 - 02:30 expect to be good from the get-go but instead put in work enter year 2 in year 2 my job increasingly sucked and so I figured it would be a good idea to have a goal to work towards I set my sides on working in the game industry so I connected with some friends of friends who already worked at AAA game studios and even noticed some new openings at Gorilla Games but this new goal also created some anxiety as it created doubt for my weapon of choice blender everywhere I looked including in many job listings people said that Maya and
• 02:30 - 03:00 3ds Max were the industry standards and blender was no more than the slightly doping nephew of 3D softwares now I obviously didn't want to set myself back with the wrong skill for the job putting in all that time and effort however the 3D artists I spoke to all said the same thing it's not the tool that matters but the result plus many of the same principles apply on a broader level than the tool itself learning Maya isn't crazy hard if you're great at blender just as learning digital art isn't that difficult if you already make physical
• 03:00 - 03:30 art so it's not time wasted in my opinion and to be honest it also kind of fit my view since blunder was still $2,500 cheaper than the so-called industry standards plus with the 2.8 update blender looked and performed better than ever and also got increasingly popular with both Pro and aspiring artists fact was though that you'll have to learn the basics for the tool and as you may remember I still didn't really know any of these Basics and not only did I not know the blender Basics I also needed to learn skills
• 03:30 - 04:00 like UV un rapping texturing proper topology and so many other crucial skills so just like in year 1 I went at it and tried doing it all by myself but this time around I realized my mistake early on and took to the internet and my new 3D artist friends for help now I can't stress enough the importance of having access to a group of people like that it's so cool and such a great motivator to be able to learn from and with each other which is why I would recommend each and every one of you to look for similar groups even if it's just a General one like my own Discord
• 04:00 - 04:30 channel to further improve my skill I also watched dozens of tutorials on anything game art related and took several courses like for example CG boost Master the 3D environments course now had I known about skillshare at the time the sponsor of this video I probably would have learned so much more too during this year you can't always find good tutorials on subjects and buying courses can be really really expensive yet skillshare offers hundreds of different courses on a wide range of topics whether it's blender Maya 3DS Max
• 04:30 - 05:00 UV unwrapping or something entirely different yet relevant like the course designed for the job you want personal projects to build your portfolio by Allison ker that teaches you how you can effectively use your time for personal projects that will help you land that dream job skillshare literally offers thousands of classes on dozens of relevant subjects that will all help you become better and with their new and improved class system including smarter class categories new class topics and the ability to find classes by software and material finding the right class for
• 05:00 - 05:30 you should be easier than ever don't make the same mistake I did 4 years ago invest in Endless knowledge for just a couple of bucks a month by signing up to skillshare now and use my link in the description to get a one Monon free trial it's available for the first 500 people who sign up so don't miss out now having spent all year learning the basics and getting better at blender I slowly started feeling comfortable with 3D and I was truly excited for the future but that excitement didn't last long because in year three I quit blender with the limited free time I had I found spending it on learning blender
• 05:30 - 06:00 increasingly difficult working a job socializing with family and friends and trying to learn a new skill was a lot I started spending less time on learning and more time on relaxing booing blender became a chore instead of fun and the idea of having to spend yet another evening at night learning about shortcuts and proper modeling techniques turned into a huge hurdle this feeling lasted for months after a while I figured that what I needed was some external pressure so I decided to join in on Art station's feudal Japan challenge and set my sides on their prop
• 06:00 - 06:30 challenge creating three highquality game assets based on Concepts from the already completed concept art challenge this really helped as I now had a goal to achieve having told friends and family and most important my group of peers that I'd be joining really put on pressure to put into work and fired my passion every moment not spent working or sleeping I now put into this challenge hundreds and hundreds of hours often deep into the night over the course of months and in the end I managed to complete two out of the three quired props I never stood a chance at
• 06:30 - 07:00 winning but having put in so much effort I was proud of my accomplishment creating two in my opinion pretty cool and well-made assets that got some positive feedback from Pro artist and taught me a lot of new stuff was a big high for this year but after the challenge was over I fell into a hole the realization set in that it took me months of work to create two prop assets that in an actual Studio would probably take about a day or four of work each if not less I also kind of burned out on the challenge since I put put in so much
• 07:00 - 07:30 effort without properly resting relaxing and taking care of myself and so I lost any and all confidence that I gained in the last 3 years and so I quit I gave up I felt like I began too late was too old and couldn't compete with people that had more time more skills and less obligations all the while being 10 years younger than me looking back I probably should have kept added I now believe that whatever you put energy into gross yet I gave up so early on giving into my anxiety and never gave this thing enough
• 07:30 - 08:00 of a chance to develop and grow now this all sounds pretty bad and I like the story should end here but instead it actually sparked the biggest change in my life ever which leads me to year four I think this is true but in my case I couldn't really move this group of people who had a better chance of getting the job that I want instead I decided on not moving the obstruction but the goal itself ever since I can remember I've liked teaching and helping
• 08:00 - 08:30 others I did so as a kid tutoring classmates in primary school I helped friends with classes in high school and taught my college class and illustrator it's always been a common theme in my life and after 3 years of learning blender I got to a point where I felt comfortable in showing others to ropes I clearly remember ducky 3D's video how I make tutorials for a living on YouTube as a huge eye opener that making a living like this was possible compare that with Co preventing anything besides sitting behind my PC this turned out to be a decisive moment for me to start
• 08:30 - 09:00 doing tutorials too and so I moved the goal to making a living with 3D through online methods once more spending most of my free time learning editing making videos all the while improving my blender skills working from my attic this led to my first few blender tutorials they didn't go viral but they also didn't perform terrible and as with all things getting good at it takes a lot of dedication and tons of time again if you put energy into something it grows luckily I thoroughly enjoyed this combination ation of doing blunder and
• 09:00 - 09:30 teaching it to others plus this time around I wasn't planning on giving up like before no matter the struggle in combining this with work and social life so I made video after video creating personal projects as the basis for these tutorials and with each video the quality and more importantly my skill as a teacher and blender user grew I learned so many new things like running a YouTube channel presenting information telling a story and being an online presence and with blender constantly getting new updates including a huge overhaul in version 3.0 there was no
• 09:30 - 10:00 shortage of new stuff to learn discover and teach in videos eventually I figured that even if this YouTube thing never went anywhere I still got all these new skills that would look good on my resume which honestly is a great reason for learning new things anyways it shows dedication the will to grow and learn and the ability to change working from home due to co still I spent this whole year making tutorials and by the end of the year I enjoyed this so much I decided to quit my job now I think it's good to point out here that I wouldn't recommend anyone ever do this without
• 10:00 - 10:30 some sort of safety net in my case my wife had a decent paying job and if necessary we could rely on her income to survive while I went back to finding a normal job anyways all of this really put the pressure on for year five all in on blender and no longer having a job I spent every waking moment studying and creating testing with blender's new feature geometry notes learning new texturing methods experimenting with new settings like cosics and turning all of this new found knowledge into tutorials and content what was really cool is that
• 10:30 - 11:00 with putting all of this effort into sharing my knowledge online it also attracted companies and people who saw these skills and wanted to hire me for projects have me test their product or name their brand and this was huge for me it's also why I'd recommend anyone who wants to make a living through 3D to have an online presence and present your skills and your knowledge being there and sharing a little bits of what makes you you as an artist attracts attention from people who either feel the same way like what you're saying or simply think
• 11:00 - 11:30 you're making cool stuff now the weird thing is if you're good at something this can lead to you doing less of it the person leading a team of 3D artists although one themselves at some point probably does little to no art these days because they're now managing this team this also happened to me I spent so much time making videos running the business and doing all the things that come with it that by the end of year five I hadn't really used blender from once and that's bad because using blender is what I enjoy not only that learning is a lifelong process especially with blenders developing so
• 11:30 - 12:00 fast we're already at blunder 4 plus now which is kind of crazy to me coming from 2.7 and this industry is constantly moving and changing just take AI for example throwing new challenges at us so improving learning and working with the tools is important and I stopped doing that so now we're at year six I've been trying to reconnect more of a blended this year but it often still feels like the train is in motion and I can't really get off anymore I'm on board heading for Destination who knows now I'm not complaining this train is amazing and I'm having a blast riding it
• 12:00 - 12:30 but seeing blender from the window as I pass it once more isn't always fun and that's what my biggest take out from 6 years of blender is I started doing blender initially as a creative outlet with making a living being a means to keep doing blender as much as possible and going from starting out making art like this to improving with game assets like these to finally having a successful career doing 3D tutorial content for over 200,000 of you has been amazing to be a part of but at some point turning a hobby into work can
• 12:30 - 13:00 prevent you from actually doing the Hobby in the free careless way that you did before there's nothing wrong with that but it's good to realize this if you set out to turn your passion into a living now for me the way forward is to get back into blender as much as possible whilst embracing this new career that it gave me how I don't know yet but I do know that I look forward to the years to come and share with all of you and blender