I actually only very rarely buy various tutorials, even less now than when I started out. When I do get tempted to buy a course, it’s only because I’m very interested in other artists‘ approaches. A few days ago I purchased the course from „Piotr Krynski“ via Artstation because I have been following his work for some time and I was simply interested in how he handles his sometimes huge environments in Blender and, above all, I was also interested in how he creates and publishes some of them in a relatively short period of time. Since I haven’t been working with Blender for that long, in contrast to Maya or Max, I was also hoping to learn a few tips and tricks in Blender that I didn’t have on my screen or didn’t know yet.
To mention one thing right from the start…
even when I watched the first videos of the workshop, I was accompanied by a mixture of fascination and incredulous amazement… but more on that later.
The course is about 10 hours long, divided into 29 sections and currently costs just under 58.00 euros at Artstation.
A little tip on the side, also look at other providers if you want to buy a workshop. Sometimes, for example, the same courses are offered at a lower price by „FlippedNormals“ and the like. It is not uncommon for the prices to be very different and you can save up to 20.00 euros.
The individual videos of the course are completely commented in English and there are no timelapse recordings, which I personally find positive. In my opinion, the course is aimed more at advanced Blender users; this workshop is less suitable for beginners. Individual areas are explained in more detail, but not in detail. It assumes a certain amount of prior knowledge of Blender and I personally do not recommend this course for beginners because the approach shown is partly a kind of „wood chipper method“. As a beginner, you should first learn the various modeling techniques and basic 3D understanding to get it politically correct, if you will. For advanced students, this course shows an amazing and fascinating approach where what is shown could well be an option for your upcoming projects.
This brings us to the aforementioned amazement and fascination. I don’t know what your approach is to 3D work, but I always tend to model everything cleanly and well down to the last detail. Sometimes I even get lost in the modeling process, which can be problematic in many ways and is definitely an issue I need to work on. I always think to myself, it needs to be here and it needs to be there and by the time I get it right, the individual objects (even those not close to the camera) are too high poly and I end up with well over 5 million polys in a relatively small scene where others with the same scene would only need 100,000 polys. Of course I’ve exaggerated a bit here, but you certainly know what I mean and what I’m getting at.
The first thing I noticed is that Piotr uses a lot of external models and resources from Sketchfab and the like, one of many factors why I can now understand why he can create such huge environments in a relatively short time. I probably had a completely wrong mindset until now. I always thought that the big and well-known artists create everything themselves and simply don’t need to use external materials and models. But I have to mention that Piotr uses scanned models rather than classic finished models.
However, I don’t want to give the impression here that I was disappointed with the course or that I thought the approach was bad. On the contrary, I was simply surprised and it just showed me that even the great artists only cook with water.
Much of the course shown was not entirely new or surprising to me, I have seen similar things in other places. But Piotr showed some tips and tricks in Blender that I’m sure some people haven’t seen before. Especially his way of modeling things in connection with various AddOn’s was and is a real enrichment for me, because I would not have used some features like for example in HardOps or connected them in the way he shows them.
I also found it astonishing how sloppily and sometimes clumsily the individual objects were modeled and placed. Piotr pays no attention to whether the edges are beveled or whether the mesh of objects looks clean. It is duplicated, nested, rotated and piled up until it somehow fits. Piotr’s approach is extremely playful and has a certain lightness to it that makes it a real pleasure and, in my eyes, a real enrichment.
Towards the end of the workshop, it’s hard to imagine that the initially clunky and imprecise modeling would result in something so great in the end. It’s amazing how Piotr makes things look just by creating the right textures, so that afterwards it just fits and you think to yourself…
Aha… wow… that’s how it works too.
Personally, I can really recommend this course, if only because Piotr’s way of working is refreshing, at least for me. If you are looking for a course where „Deep Dive“ various steps or features in Blender are shown, you won’t find it here. But there are many smaller and larger tips and tricks shown and a playful, great and fascinating way of working that is really fun to watch. The course is certainly not cheap, but the money is well invested, as I think that even after watching it for the first time, you will come back to it from time to time. Which, in my opinion, is not always the case with many workshops and tutorials.
Finally, I should mention that he only uses Blender and no other software and, as far as I know, this applies to almost all of his work. In this workshop, however, he shows which add-ons he works with, and he also presents some of the extensions in a video.
You can purchase the course here: KLICK