Onwards to My First Project

id I disappear? Nope! Well sort of - sort of not!

I completed my first 25 days of Blender last week and shortly after transitioned from the Modeling phase to the Materials phase. I've been heads down in videos focused on figuring out how nodes work and I think that I finally have a breakthrough. In the midst of following material tutorial after material tutorial, I fell back into the rhythm of watching creator's build process to see how people approached creating different objects. I even began to sneak a peek at character modeling.

All of this has led to me realizing that I need a goal to work towards. Although breaking my Blender journey up across segmented days has helped with keeping me consistent with my learning, it's also put me into a position of not feeling as motivated to just whip up a random object for the sake of practicing. I actually need something bigger than that. Something with a greater purpose. Well, that led to a goal of mine that I haven't shared publicly with people: I want to create a video game.

I've been sitting on this idea for a while now and it's partially why I wanted to become a 3D artist (or at least get better at it). Since I plan to be a team of one, I needed the skillset to cover as many roles as possible within my power. I've been watching so many GDC talks and reading blog articles about how games are made! If anything, only my partner and iAsia (my best friend) actually know about how much time I have spent dedicated towards this goal. And as someone that's not a gamer, I've been testing out games - a lot. I even spent 1hr 45 mins watching someone play through What Remains of Edith Finch just so I could better understand how creators approach exploratory games. Although I'm still narrowing down the approach I'd like to take for my game, I'm excited to start on the assets once I finish ironing out some of the logistics.

I'm unsure I'll blog the journey or just share bits and pieces of it on Instagram. But for now, I'm proud to say that I'm letting this goal of mine drive my motivation for continuing to master Blender.

If you've been following along throughout the first 25 days of my Blender learning journey, I'd like to thank you for checking it out! I'm actually quite shocked by how many people have mentioned that they read my blog (including my daddy, hi daddy!). And to have received such awesome and constructive feedback on my renders has been more than I could have ever hoped for. Yanno, sharing your work online when you're still in your infancy of learning a new skill can be overwhelmingly scary. It's easy to get suckered into thinking that you're not good enough after browsing through renders on Instagram and Pinterest. But at the end of the day, we all had to start somewhere. It just so happens that my 'somewhere' came later in life. But I'm always inspired by the creators who were self-taught and acquired most of their skills over the course of a year. It truly does give me the courage that I need to feel confident to believe that I too can do it!

But ya'll, this journey of deciding to create my own video game has been beautiful. I've never felt so connected to a goal lately! This entire endeavor of ramping up on the designer and developer skills is going to pay off HUGE down the road for me. Especially since there's a good amount of overlap with this in my day-to-day job.

Anywho, again thanks for following along. Although this may be the final blog post for my Blender journey, you're always welcomed to follow me on Instagram (@MonthAfterMars).

Bye!

P.S. The blog cover art is the concept art I'm referencing for the game that I'm creating - so exciting!