Hey Reader,

Today, we have even more goodies for you than usual, so stay with us till the end.

There are 3 new videos from our instructors and a free, flexible Blender Eye Kit (along with Jim’s tutorial). Louis shares a breakdown of his assistant bot, AiB, and Martin gets into intricate details of his stylized Spartan armor.

Lastly, we share a beautiful feature film trailer made in Blender, and Humaniq - a new human characters library and crowd generator, so strap on your seatbelts and let’s dive into it!

​Eyes in Blender Made Easy + Free Eyes Kit​

Do you dare to look our 3D Characters Master - Jim deep in the eye?

What you see there may entirely transform the way you look at Character creation in Blender, especially if you use the new free Blender Eye Kit that you can now download from the resources section of our website.

It comes with 20+ presets for the most common eye types (both realistic and stylized). It’s also very flexible and easy to customize.

​In this video, Jim explains how to add this new asset to your Blender asset browser and all of its features and controls so that you can add realistic or stylized eyes to your characters with just a few clicks.

​How Louis Made His Personal Assistant 3D Bot in Blender​

Louis came up with the brilliant idea of a sidekick assistant bot while working on the Robotic Planet course.

As usual for Louis, he went the extra mile with this simple project and injected some AI satire, technical challenges with VR controllers, retro 80’s tech design, and a bit of that extra wow factor only humans are capable of (especially talented hand models such as Louis).

It wouldn’t be a Louis du Mont video without him sharing all his secret tips and workflows with us all, sprinkled with a few great dry jokes.

​A Touching Feature Film Made with Blender​

Looks like ‘Flow’ wasn’t an exception, but rather a sign of a new wave (pun intended) of amazing feature films made with Blender. Here comes another beautiful animation, ‘In Waves’ (coming to cinemas in France and Belgium in June, and later to be released on Netflix globally).

Though the 2D look and dreamy colors may suggest a lighthearted summer love story, the film actually dives into the tough topic of loss and mourning at a young age (but also love and passion for surfing). It’s based on an autobiographical graphic novel by AJ Dungo from 2019, and it’s already touched the hearts of film festival audiences in Annecy and Cannes.

So far, we can only enjoy the trailer, but if you’re hungry for more information about the film before it’s available, you can also watch an in-depth interview with the team behind it.

​Humaniq - a Human Asset Library for Blender​

If your 3D scenes feel empty, it’s most likely due to one missing piece. Humans. They’re everywhere in the real world around us, and why should the 3D world be any different?

That’s where Humaniq by Polygoniq comes in with a handy, flexible, and varied library of human models. Let’s unpack what these three adjectives mean in this context.

Handy - all of the models are easy to add and accessible as assets in Blender via Polygoniq’s Engon Addon. Just pick and click, and they’ll instantly populate your scene. Need a crowd? A simple-to-use geometry node-based crowd generator is also included.

Flexible - the models are equipped with a simple rig, so you can adjust their pose as needed. The addon also allows for quick color adjustments for hair and clothing. The crowd generator can spawn big or small groups of people easily controllable with a curve and filling areas while omitting obstacles like architecture or furniture.

Varied - the library is filled with adults, children, women and men, with different outfits and even some pets and props. It’s primarily designed for architectural visualisation, but can be useful for any 3D scene that contains humans.

Humaniq is now available with an early bird discount until mid-July (when the full price will rise from 69$ to 99$), so don’t miss the opportunity.

There are also two cheaper tiers (starter for 6$ and lite for 33$ ) with a limited number of models.

​Get Humaniq here (affiliate link)

​Creating a Spartan Reenactor in Blender​

Have you ever been so passionate about something that you filled an entire bookcase with literature and albums on the topic? That’s surely the case for Martin Klekner’s love for ancient Greece, but he doesn’t just stop at studying books. He shares his passion with other Sparta nerds and turns it into inspiring art projects we can all enjoy and learn from.

Just watching someone wonder if a specific armor type fits more into the sixth or the fifth century BC Greek army (like in this video) makes me want to dive into my own projects with a similar obsession over details that may seem irrelevant to the non-initiated. Details that make a whole world of difference between projects that are true labour of love and just fast, shallow ‘content’.

Phew…That was a long one!

We hope you found it useful and inspiring.

That’s all for now. Stay creative and till next time.

Jarosław, Zach & Alan (the CG Boost Newsletter Team)