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I have just started learning Blender. I have watched and built along with a couple of online courses. (Blender Guru's donut and currently, LinkedIn Learning's courses). I find that building and rebuilding these projects helps me a lot. I have also watched a lot of videos on YouTube. I see that there are different approaches to building something in Blender. I wanted to get some advice from more experienced users here.

I am trying to build a 3D sandpiper that I hope to eventually animate. I imported two views of it from some of my 2D animations for reference.

At first, I tried using a Plane and extruding it to make the shape of the bird. Then, I saw something about importing SVGs into Blender and converting them to mesh objects. Since I know Inkscape, I thought this might be better. So, I started another file with that. This seemed like it might be a better approach since the original 2D sandpiper was made with Bezier curves. But, is this approach going to lead to big problems down the line?

With either approach, I am going to have to eventually start sculpting.

I am not on any deadline. This is a personal project/ambition. I don't mind "failing" at a project and starting over. I find that it helps me learn how to find every thing in the application and learn the processes. But, I wanted to hear from experienced Blender artists.

Yet another approach I have seen is to block out something using a combination of mesh objects. I thought about doing that with this bird. I would need a sphere for its body, maybe a cylinder for its neck, cylinders for the legs and another sphere for its head. I would have to extrude the details like the beak or possibly use a cone. I watched a video on YouTube where someone built an elephant this way. All the objects would have to be combined and the final shape's details would be sculpted.

How do you as an experienced Blender user approach a project and decide how to build it?

Extruding from a mesh Plane (top) and the start of an imported SVG shape

  • https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/58709/what-are-the-practical-differences-between-beziers-nurbs-and-paths – Duarte Farrajota Ramos Sep 03 '21 at 14:18
  • hello, please share your flat image if you want people to try to model the object. I would say work with as less vertices as possible, your current object as a lot of vertices, it will make the modeling more complicated than to begin with only several vertices that you extrude – moonboots Sep 03 '21 at 14:27
  • Also remember that since your model looks to be symmetrical (side to side), you can make use of a mirror modifier and therefore only need to model half of the object. – Christopher Bennett Sep 03 '21 at 15:12
  • Ah...OK...I have seen the Mirror modifier demonstrated. I tried it a couple of times myself. I am a bit overwhelmed right now with everything Blender can do. But, I go step by step. Try. Fail. Try again. No problem. So, I should start out with less vertices and add as needed. OK. Yes. I did one try with this bird using the extruded plane and got frustrated because I had so many faces to work with. But, I will try again. Thanks. –  Sep 03 '21 at 18:41

1 Answers1

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Working with svg may be intersting sometimes, especially for letters, logo, etc, i.e. essentially complicated objects that are flat with thickness, but to model real 3D object you should rather use as less vertices as possible, use the different orthographic views and extrude, as if you were modeling a car or a plane. Begin with the side view, extrude an edge:

enter image description here

Switcht to side view, extrude to give thickness, begin to give it relief on the side:

enter image description here

Give your object a Mirror modifier so that you only have to work on one side, work again:

enter image description here

enter image description here

Work from top view:

enter image description here

Work from other views:

enter image description here

moonboots
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  • Ah...OK. Fewer shapes/vertices at the start. Add as needed. OK. Thank you. –  Sep 03 '21 at 18:43