Hey Reader,

Zach here,

With a fresh dose of inspiration and resources from the 3D world.

Today, I’ll share an interesting interview with the director of "Flow", followed by SouthernShotty’s topology tutorial, and three great short Blender tips from our CG Boost instructors.

Let’s dive in.

​Gints Zilbalodis's Creative Flow​

"Flow" - the Oscar-winning animation made in Blender didn’t just come out of nowhere. In this interview, Gints Zabalodis (the creator of "Flow") shares his story and how his ideas and skills grew over time and led to his impressive international artistic success.

It’s a very inspiring story of a self-driven artist who opens up to new opportunities and grows through collaboration with others (a story that’s very similar to Flow’s main character - the cat).

I hope our courses and community can be a space where you can find your way to reaching new artistic heights and the right people to collaborate with, just like Gints and his 3D cat from "Flow".

​Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Topology in Blender​

If you ever struggled with understanding what topology is and what makes it good or bad, then this video by SouthernShotty will come in very handy.

Starting from what topology is and what mesh models are made of, SouthernShotty goes through the most important areas where a good placement of edges and vertices is important.

Learning all of this can take time, but it’s a great introduction that will set you on a good path if you’re just starting your 3D journey.

​Tip #1: Get Better at Sculpting Lips with Jim Morren​

​

Sculpting lips can be a tricky thing. In this short video, Jim goes over the most common beginner mistakes and gives a few simple tips to quickly level up your 3D character’s mouths and make them more believable.

​Tip #2: V Unwrapping in Blender made Easy by Zach Reinhardt​

​

​These workflow speed up tips for UV unwrapping can make the process (dreaded by most 3D artists) much faster and more fun.

If you like these tips and are hungry for more UV knowledge, we have a free in-depth UV unwrapping tutorial as well.

​Tip #3: Easily Randomize Objects in Blender with Martin Klekner​

​

Sometimes you need to quickly scatter and randomize a few objects in your scene, and you don’t want to mess with Geometry Nodes or Particle Systems. Luckily, Blender has a nice, but often overlooked, feature called Randomize Transform.

​In this short video, Martin Klekner will explain and show you how to use it on a practical example.
​

Here you can find more of our short videos.

​

That’s all from me today. Have a great weekend, and till next time.

~Zach