Always striving to push myself forward, out of my artistic comfort zones and into uncharted territory I thought I'd re-open my copy of Blender, a free 3d design software. It's an amazing piece of software that can do all sorts of stuff from 3d design to animation. (As far as I can tell, the list may be endless). 

I had toyed with Blender earlier this year, but it comes with a steep learning curve and due to time constraints I left it alone to sit untouched on my desktop. Until recently, when I decided I wanted to learn more and put aside some time to do so as the year comes to an end. 

The great thing about Blender, for a noob like myself, is the buzz of excitement you get every time you make something or learn something new and each little step leads to the next so that now I'm constantly thinking what can I make next and how can I make it?

Although it's a slight deviation from my usual photography I'm finding ways to introduce my photo work into the Blender process, either as textures, planes, environment lighting, etc.. and the software lets you adjust pixel dimensions, focal lengths, depth of field, grain and so on so I feel like I'm still taking pictures but with a virtual camera instead of my regular kit. 

With only weeks to go before 2019 I'm hoping to commit most of my remaining time this year to progressing with Blender to the point that it becomes an invaluable tool within my photography and illustration work. 

PS. I will be running a promotional code across my site tomorrow, 23rd November 2018. Keep an eye out for it if you are interested in buying any prints of my work :)

For those of you looking to get into Blender you can find the software by using the following link. 

https://www.blender.org/download/
 

There's some great experts giving tutorials over on YouTube. I'd suggest starting with Andrew Price's Blender Guru course and then adding in the following tutors to your education experience. They give easy to follow instructions and make it all much more accessible. 

Blender Guru

Gleb Alexandrov

Mandala Motion

Derek Elliott

Grant Abbitt