3D & Design · Beginner
Blender From Zero
Get past the first difficult week of Blender and finish something you can look at.
- Lessons
- 17 lessons
- Total runtime
- 27 hours of video
- Modules
- 8 modules
- Optional lessons
- 13 optional
Free. No account.
About this course
Blender is free, it handles modelling, sculpting, texturing, lighting, animation and rendering, and its interface is famously unwelcoming for about a week. This path is arranged to get you through that week and out the other side with finished work rather than abandoned files.
You start with the official fundamentals series, which is short and explains the interface itself rather than a project. Then comes the donut — the tutorial most Blender users learned on, and still the best first project, because it runs modelling, materials, lighting and rendering together in one continuous build and ends with an image you made.
After that the path widens. Grant Abbitt's series drills the habits and modifiers that separate slow work from fast work, and Imphenzia's low-poly video is a single sitting that teaches modelling discipline by stripping away everything except form. The final lesson is marked optional: it is game-asset specific and only worth your time if you are heading towards a game engine.
Roughly ten hours on the required path, and about twenty-seven in total once the optional modules on modelling, sculpting, texturing and animation are included. Blender rewards repetition more than most subjects, so budget for redoing the donut once from memory — that second attempt is where it stops being a tutorial you followed and starts being a thing you can do.
What you'll be able to do
- Navigate Blender's viewport, editors and shortcuts without fighting the interface
- Model, texture, light and render a finished object from an empty scene
- Use modifiers and the shader editor well enough to follow any tutorial you find later
- Build clean low-poly models and explain why topology matters
Curriculum
17 lessons · 27 hours
Orientation
1 lesson · 30m
Your First Project
3 lessons · 10h 1m
- 02CompletedThe Donut TutorialBlender GuruPlaylistLong, and worth it. One continuous build that takes you through modelling, materials, lighting and rendering, ending in a finished image rather than a pile of theory.4h 30m
- 03CompletedBeginner Blender Tutorial — CompleteOptionalBlender GuruVideoThe donut course as one continuous four-hour video rather than a playlist of parts. Same teacher, same project — take whichever format you are more likely to finish.4h 19m
- 04CompletedBlender Beginner TutorialOptionalPolygon RunwayVideoA different first project in a stylised, low-detail style that looks good much sooner than photorealism does. A good antidote if the donut is dragging.1h 12m
Building Skill
2 lessons · 4h 30m
- 05CompletedGet Good at BlenderGrant Abbitt (Gabbitt)PlaylistAimed squarely at the gap after your first tutorial: the shortcuts, modifiers and working habits that make everything afterwards faster.3h
- 06CompletedLearn Low Poly ModelingImphenziaVideoOne sitting, one discipline. Low-poly work removes textures and detail so that the only thing left to learn is form and topology.1h 30m
Modelling
3 lessons · 4h 4m
- 07CompletedModeling in Blender for Complete BeginnersOptionalJoey CarlinoVideoTwo hours on topology and the modelling tools themselves, rather than on one project. This is the lesson that makes the difference between following a tutorial and modelling something of your own.1h 53m
- 08Completed3D Modeling for BeginnersOptionalRyan King ArtVideoA slower second pass over the same ground, with more repetition of the keyboard shortcuts. Blender is largely muscle memory, and repetition is how it is acquired.1h 40m
- 09CompletedHard-Surface Modelling FundamentalsOptionalCG BoostVideoMachined, man-made objects — bevels, sharp edges and clean shading. A different discipline from organic modelling and the one most product and game work needs.31m
Sculpting
3 lessons · 2h 11m
- 10CompletedSculpting in Blender — A Complete Beginner's GuideOptionalGrant Abbitt (Gabbitt)VideoSculpting is closer to working in clay than to modelling, and it is how organic shapes — creatures, faces, folds — are actually made. Start here.33m
- 11CompletedSculpting for Complete BeginnersOptionalRyan King ArtVideoA longer worked example, ending in a finished sculpt rather than a demonstration of the tools.54m
- 12CompletedMaster Blender Sculpting — Every Brush ExplainedOptionalGrant Abbitt (Gabbitt)VideoReference material. Blender ships with a great many brushes and most people use four; this is how to find out which of the others you have been missing.44m
Materials and Texturing
2 lessons · 2h 14m
- 13CompletedHow to Texture in BlenderOptionalBlender GuruVideoNearly two hours on the node editor, UV unwrapping and physically based materials. Texturing is where a competent model starts to look like a finished image, and it is under-taught relative to how much it matters.1h 53m
- 14CompletedTexture Painting — A Detailed GuideOptionalGrant Abbitt (Gabbitt)VideoPainting directly onto a model rather than assembling materials from nodes. The faster route to hand-styled work.21m
Animation
2 lessons · 1h 11m
- 15CompletedAnimation for BeginnersOptionalRyan King ArtVideoKeyframes, the graph editor and easing. Even a small amount of motion changes how finished a piece feels, and the basics take an afternoon.45m
- 16CompletedBecome a Pro at Animation in 25 MinutesOptionalCG GeekVideoA tighter pass focused on making motion look good rather than on making it exist — timing, anticipation and follow-through.26m
Where To Go Next
1 lesson · 2h
Credits
Every lesson in this course was made by one of these channels. Tubeversity sequenced them; it did not make them. If a course is useful to you, the people below are the ones who earned it.