Art Guy Summer Week 1 Review

I have for you the first week of videos from Art Guy Summer. I have been doing it every day as promised, but I haven't been able to edit the videos as fast as I make them. Here's what I've accomplished in the first week:

1. I learned the basics of blender and made 4 models of simple things.
2. I re-learned pastels and oils, getting my art stream setup working.
3. I published 3 art videos and the 1 modeling video, but the 3D modeling videos tend to take longer to edit than I'd like.

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Oil and Pastel Painting Videos

Here's the youtube videos from my pastel painting sessions in the first week. Think of these as videos you can watch while you work or need to relax while doing something. They might work as ASMR but I think that's not quite what they are.

ASMR Oil Painting Session -- Moka Coffee Pot Step 1 Drawing

This is the first session where I used oils and a knife, but I hadn't quite figured out the sound yet.

ASMR (No Talking) Painting Session Part 2 -- Moka Pot Gets Color

Slowly getting better with the audio in this oil painting session. I like the oil and knife sound but I think the pastel sessions definitely look better on camera.

ASMR Pastel Painting (No Talking) -- Gardenia Painting For Sleeping

First pastel test painting, so the audio is better and it looks better on camera, but I actually had been using a lens that only got to F4.0 so lighting was still an issue.

ASMR Painting Video (No Talking) Peony in White Vase

This is the second pastel, and I'm still using the old lens so it a bit grainy.

Blender Learning Videos

I only cooked up one Blender video as they're harder to edit, but here it is:

How Hard Could It Be? (Learning Blender Day 1/30)

Attempting to do a more complete edit of this first session and to include an accurate timeline so you can skip ahead when things get boring or to find specific things I do.

This isn't an educational video but more of a, "If I can do it you can too." You could follow along as well if you have your own coffee cup to model.

Blender Lessons Learned

Thinking back, I believe the lessons I learned regarding Blender is that it's kind of not the right tool for any job because it's made by folks who make it for their own studio. It's meant for Blender Studio to make animated films and movies. That's why it's odd in the way it's designed. It seems to focus on scenes instead of individual objects, makes animation far too accessible for most uses, and has fairly anemic sculpting capabilities. You don't really need amazing sculpting when the most complex soft body you do is a cartoon cat with 20 vertices.

I also had a fairly well laid out button setting on my Tourbox (external control device I use) but decided to try using a plugin that gave me controls from a pie menu. It took me the whole next week to realize that pie menu plugin was junk and mostly a n00b trap before I switch back to just using the built-in keys.

Also during this week I figured out that the majority of my art skills transfer over just fine, but the real skill in 3D modeling has more to do with UI control and managing topology. Dealing with the Blender UI is mostly just a matter of grinding until you get it. It's like Vim. Dealing with topology seems to be where the sense of skill is really found in 3D modeling.

What to Expect

I'll be sending everyone a notice like this as I have videos edited and ready to view, rather than say once a week. I think if I've got an email planned with a couple videos it'll make it easier for me to get them done and out.

As they say, perfection is the enemy of good.

More emails we've sent.