I got started in Blender approximately eight and a half years ago. At the time, there were very few tutorials or other training resources available. Essentially, the only resource around was the people of the Blender Community, who was active through the online forum, http://blenderartists.org. With nothing but the generous time of other community members, Blender heads, to guide me I dove in headfirst and spent roughly eight hours a day in Blender. After a year or two I had become familiar enough with the toolset to begin producing tutorials to help fill the void that previously existed for training material. This book is a continuation of that effort, to help provide high-quality training materials to the Blender Community as a whole.

Through my years of learning and teaching, I have found many people to quickly get discouraged by Blender and 3D modeling as a whole. I myself got discouraged many times; I even quit 3D entirely for six months to a year. But I have also found that it can be one of the most rewarding forms of art out there. For myself, as a self-professed geeky artist, it requires just enough technical prowess and skills, while still proving endless opportunities for artistic exploration, to satisfy my love for all things technology and art.

This reason, among many others, is why I have written this book.