37 brilliant Blender tutorials

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Creating 3D art can be expensive. But thanks to creatives developing free open source software, like Blender, everyone can get involved. In this article, we've rounded up the best step-by-step Blender tutorials from around the web.

Improve your modelling, animating, rendering and compositing skills as you follow the projects and pick up tips from leading 3D designers in these video and text tutorials.

We've grouped these Blender tutorials into three sections, so that as well as browsing the whole list you can jump straight to the guides that are most relevant to you (use the drop-down menu above to navigate to the page you want).

Blender tutorials for beginners

01. Introduction to Blender for beginners

Get started with the basics of Blender with this free video tutorial series from Blender Foundation-certified trainer Jonathan Williamson. Boasting around 13 hours of learning, the tutorials are broken down into sections. 

Section one is all about learning to create and manipulate objects; section two looks at how to bring your new creations to life with movement; and section three covers how to render to share your creations and add finishing touches in the compositor.

02. Blender basics: shading and lighting

Before you start creating anything in Blender, you need to master the basics. This 20-minute video tutorial will walk you through Blender's shading and lighting features, and shows you what you can do with them.

03. Making sense of the 3D production pipeline

This Blender tutorial unpacks the 3D production pipeline

You don't need to master the entire 3D process to create impressive art in Blender, but it is at least helpful to have an understanding of the 3D production pipeline so you're aware of what the various elements are and can communicate with people who work in other parts of the pipeline. Get a helpful overview of this here.

04. The basics of realistic texturing

Blender expert Andrew Price, aka Blender Guru, reveals the secrets of realistic texturing in Blender in this detailed video tutorial. In this tutorial, Price shows you how to take a texture and creating some variations of it, using Photoshop or a Photoshop alternative, then putting them into Blender. Price has a whole host of excellent Blender video tutorials on his YouTube page.

05. Character animation toolkit

Learn the basics of character animation

In this series of lessons, Blender artist Beorn Leonard explains all the fundamentals of character animation in Blender. Highlights include working with timing and spacing, overlapping motion, animation walk and run cycles and understand IK and FK.

06. Lighting and baking workflow

Get to grips with the complete workflow for setting up lighting for an outdoor scene. In this tutorial you'll learn how to bake light for a blazing fast render, taking 14 seconds per frame rather than eight minutes.

07. How to create realistic reflections

Getting the reflections right is key to a realistic render

Not all surfaces have the same reflective characteristics, and if you want your renders to look realistic then you'll need to ensure that they reflect light properly. In this tutorial from 3D World, Pietro Chiovaro talks through how best to create realistic reflections in Blender.

08. Greenscreen masking for VFX

Add some Hollywood flair to your projects. Here you'll learn the basics of masking and chroma keying in Blender – just the thing for mixing real world footage with CG via a bit of green screen action.

09. Introduction to rigging

Lee Salvemini is kind of a big deal in the Blender community. He worked on Sintel, Elephants dream and spent two years on Star Wars video game titles for LucasArts. In this free video tutorial for Blender Guru, he presents a complete beginner's introduction to rigging. The video above is part one of the series, with parts two and three available on the Blender Guru site.

10. Introduction to camera tracking

Blender comes bundled with an awesome feature called Camera Tracking. Camera Tracking is a process that involves using real footage and tracking its motion so that 3D elements and VFX can be added to it. This tutorial, again from the brilliant Blender Guru, gives you a complete beginners introduction to what this tool is and how to start using it right now.

Next page: Cheatsheets for creating objects and scenes

11. 17 top tips for modelling a complex 3D city scene

Creating a city scene is hard work, but these tips break the process down

Creating a detailed city scene is no small undertaking, and requires a significant amount of repetitive, and sometimes boring, modelling actions. Rather than just enumerating point by point what he's doing, in this 3D World tutorial Mateusz Wielgus breaks down his workflow into pieces and presents them as a series of general steps and tips that you can easily follow.

12. Create a morph between two shapes

Morphing an object from one shape to another smoothly is an impressive 3D trick to be able to pull off, and in this quick tutorial from Blender Nation you'll learn not one but two different techniques for creating an amazing shape-shifting effect.

13. Create a low-poly abstract scene

A low-poly look is an on-trend aesthetic to aim for, and this tutorial from Blender Skool will teach you everything you need to know about creating a striking low-poly abstract scene. To help you along it includes a finished .blend file to work with, and photo editing nodes.

14. Create a spaceship

In this two-part video-based Blender tutorial from Blender Guru, you'll learn how to model a concept spaceship; how to use your own sketches as reference; and how a combination of modifiers can aid you in modelling. The Blender Guru site also has concept sketches and the finished .blend file to help you get to grips with it. And you can find part two here.

15. Create a 3D cup of coffee

In this complete video project by Oliver Villar on Blend Tuts you'll learn some modelling tricks, and how to create simple and not so simple node materials in the Cycles render engine.

16. Create a realistic planet Earth

This tutorial uses several textures from NASA to create a realistic planet Earth using Blender Cycles. The tutorial from Blender Guru shows you how to create easy texture mapping for spheres; how to use maps to make more convincing materials; how to create a realistic sunflare entirely in Blender; and how to add glow, colour grading and a warp effect in the compositor.

17. Make a Minion

This video tutorial from Blender for Noobs is for intermediate Blender users, and covers the modelling process to create a simple version of a Minion character from the Despicable Me movies. After modelling the Minion, you'll see how to set up the camera, backdrop and lighting to finish off with a render.

18. Make realistic bread

In this easy-to-follow tutorial, discover how to make tasty-looking bread in Blender, using displacement, subsurf scattering and more.

19. Box model a sperm whale

See how you can use box modelling to create complex shapes.

Box modelling is a staple technique for every 3D artist. Learn how to model a sperm whale suitable for use in animation or games work in this simple step-by-step guide.

20. Model a low-poly T-Rex

Create your own Jurassic Park with this easy to follow tutorial

This hour-long beginner tutorial walks you through how to model, uvmap and texture a low-poly T-Rex in Blender.

21. Animate a flame using materials

Follow this technique to create an amazing flame animation

In this superb Blender tutorial, Bassam Kurdali shows how procedural materials and the software's compositing tools can create movement.

22. Create a Tron-inspired light cycle effect

C'mon, who doesn't love a Tron light cycle?

Tron: Legacy reignited an interest in the original, ground breaking 1982 movie, which saw geeks everywhere wowed by Tron's CG light cycle sequences. Filmmaker, animator and all-round Blender tutorials supremo Bassam Kurdali shows you how to create your very own light cycle effect in this walkthrough.

23. Create an energetic fire and water scene

Blender tutorial guru Andrew Price returns to show you how to simulate real-world flame and fluid effects. His digital weapons of choice? Enter Blender's fluid and smoke simulators...

24. Create a realistic off-road scene

Learn to create a realistic terrain for a rally car

Tasks that not so long ago would have taken a long time to learn are becoming much easier to administer with a single click or a dedicated plugin as 3D software becomes more advanced. One of these is moving a car along a predefined surface geometry. In this amazing Blender tutorial, Mike Griggs demonstrates how to create a realistically rough terrain for rallying.

25. How to enhance a game level environment

In this video-based Blender tutorial, 3D expert Christopher Plush shows how to create low-overhead in-game effects that won't tax your players' machines.

26. How to make metallic text

Create attention-grabbing text with this Blender tutorial

3D typography has a big place in the industry. In this tutorial, discover how to create a big, bold, attention-grabbing title.

Next page: Essential pro techniques

27. Create stunning tileable textures

Make your own tileable textures with the Dynamic Topology system

Blender's Dynamic Topology system is, amongst other things, a great tool for creating nice-looking, tileable textures. In this tutorial, Pierrick Picaut explains how to create stylised wooden and stone tileable textures from sculpted surfaces.

28. Rig a 3D vehicle

This vehicle rig makes the most of bone constraints

Discover how the rig for this futuristic combat jet was created with this expert animator's insights. You'll learn how a bone constraint works in Blender and how to set it up, and also how a bone constraint affects the animation skeleton.

29. Create a realistic water simulation

This Blender tutorial by Andrew Price shows you how to create realistic fluid effects and render it using the new Cycles rendering engine.

30. Make animal fur with cycles and particle hair

Jonathan Lampel demonstrates how to use multiple particle systems to add realistic hair to an animal and how to easily set up a great looking fur material using Cycles' new hair shader.

31. Create a photo-real render using cycles

Create jewellery that's photo-realistic

In this series of six in-depth video-based Blender tutorials, pro 3D artist Alex Telford shows you how to create a realistic render of some jewellery. Watch as he takes you from concept to final image with the software's Cycles render engine.

32. Photorealism explained

"If you're a CG artist hoping to work in the industry, photorealism is the most important skill you can focus on," says Andrew Price on Blender Guru. "It not only helps you to learn and understand how real life looks (a crucial step for creating cartoonish exaggerated styles), but is also highly in-demand for Hollywood, gaming studios and new industries." Price's guide lasts for nearly an hour, but is packed with helpful tips and tricks.

33. Roll a 3D object on its edge

Use the curve editor to roll objects on their edge

This is one of the quicker Blender tutorials in this list, where you can learn how to roll objects on their edge using the curve editor. Bassam Kurdali talks you through the technique in 10 easy steps.

34. Animate a circular swipe

Bassam Kurdali's video explains how to set up a clock face-style swiping action using the popular open-source 3D package. You can also download the accompanying project files for this tutorial.

35. Camera mapping

Here, Andrew Price explains everything you need to know to do camera mapping using Blender.

36. Fun with rigid bodies

Bring the destruction! Andrew Price demonstrates how to go wild with Blender's rigid body simulator, making a chain, a wrecking ball and a load of stuff to destroy in an entertaining manner.

37. 13 brilliant Blender tips from the pros

Experts offer 13 insightful tips

Make Blender part of your professional pipeline with this set of workflow tips and tricks from the experts. Ian Hubert (Project London), James Neal (Red Cartel), Jason van Gumster (Hand Turkey Studios), William Reynish (an animator on Big Buck Bunny and Sintel) and Nathan Vegdahl (freelance), all spill the beans.

Related articles:

• 30 inspiring examples of 3D art
• How VR is revolutionising the creation of 3D art
• 8 of the best animated shorts

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