2 - Learning to mesh

https://vintagesimstress.tumblr.com/post/616807874648326144/ii-learning-to-mesh

Install everything you downloaded and check if you can open it. Everything works fine? No error messages? Do you see a bunch of options with a little puzzle piece in paint.net (sub)menus? Great, let’s move forward!

(If it doesn’t, check once again any installation instructions - and if you’re sure you did everything right and it should work but doesn’t, try just reinstalling it)

As we’re not interested in simple recolours or small edits, but full blown CC creating, we’re going to start with the big thing: learning how to mesh in Blender.

That’s the moment when I step back and leave the job to the real pro: a certain youtuber known as Blender Guru. Partly because he’s definitely better at this than me, partly because trying to explain 3D modelling through screenshots for sure wouldn’t work as well as doing it through videos.

So now, please head to his channel and watch THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS video. In this order. Maybe not necessarily all of them at once. Give yourself some time to process it all. The videos are long, especially the later ones, but fun to watch and not too hard to follow.

(Also, yes, I skipped one part, that’s on purpose. You won’t need nodes. We’ll stick to the Blender render).

Practice all of the stuff which is mentioned in those videos. Do your homework. I mean it. Make that donut, the cup and even the plate! (he explains how to do it at the beginning of part 6 if you’re having problems).

That’s my own, personal donut & co. I watched that texturing part as well, as you can see :)

Now, I know what you might be thinking. A donut? Who cares about donuts? You want to make a Victorian dress! And I understand you all too well. That’s exactly how I was feeling too, starting with tutorials telling me how to shorten a skirt when all I wanted was to make floor-length dresses. But trust me: if you can make a donut, then you can also make a dress – well, maybe with a bit of help. And understanding Blender, feeling more or less confident in it, will give you a massive head start. So dedicate some time to those videos and learn all you can!

And once again: be patient.

What you should know after watching those 4 parts of the Blender course:

how to move around in Blender (turn/move the camera, get closer/further etc)
how to change the viewpoint (also, if you’re on laptop and don’t have numeric keyboard, pay special attention to the part where he shows how to change the default shortkeys – and change those num shortkeys to ‘normal’ numbers! That’ll save you lots of time later)
how to switch between object and edit mode
how to switch the shading (solid/wireframe/material etc.)