I've been a paid subscriber for a while and dearly appreciate all you're doing. Except it appears (and I could be wrong) that this and other posts of yours use AI for art. If so, doesn't this contradict so much of what you stand for? If not, I stand corrected.
You know, part of me figured this would happen at some point. So I learned how to use OBS Studio so I could make some process videos showing how I make the art that I’m using. Heads up, I’m not a professional artist. Nor am I a Blender coach. I’m just someone who spent the last four years learning how to use one of the most powerful, and also one of the most notoriously difficult, pieces of software on the planet. Because I wanted to make stuff:
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This is just me spinning through my scenes and messing around, so you see what it’s like behind the curtain. (The music is “Mechanical Black, by Yoed Nir, licensed from Artlist.)
So, this is what I’ve been doing.
Every day, I get up and take care of my family. I learn how to filter water. I learn how to strip wires. I learn how to rate cables. I test new gear. Then I spend hours in Blender arranging these scenes, posing the characters, wrestling with shader nodes and vertices, wiggling path curves, rotating edge loops, applying grease pencils and line art modifiers, and rendering. I don’t make everything from scratch. I license assets. My main character was made by a real human 3D artist. I licensed and adapted her for my project because she was the perfect fit, better than any character I’d made and rigged on my own, and better than the hundreds of other characters I’d looked at. This is standard industry practice. I’m making a 300-page illustrated guide. It’s mostly just me, doing the work of a small animation studio.
Until now, I really didn’t talk much about my journey with Blender because I figured most people wouldn’t be interested.
Maybe I was wrong.
So here’s the deal: Back in 2023, I decided to learn Blender. It was actually Nerd Forge who convinced me it was even possible:
So I jumped in. As an academic and an English major, I’d never done anything like this ever before. It was insanely intimidating.
The learning curve was…
Whew…
I’m not sure I can describe how much sleep I sacrificed, how much anger and frustration I quelled while learning all of this while navigating the rest of my life, and that included (for about a year) continuing to work as a professor. As I got deeper and deeper into Blender, I lost almost all interest in publishing academic articles on obscure topics. Compared to what I’m doing now, it felt pointless. In Blender, I was actually learning to make things. The countless hours usually paid off. I was proud, even when my first models looked like garbage.
Another evolution I didn’t expect:
Learning to use Blender completely rewired my brain. I’ve always been a word person. I dabbled in art, but I wasn’t good. Hundreds of hours in Blender made me a more visual, more technical, more procedural person.
That fed right into my survival projects.
For a little while, we even had a 3D printer. I designed toys for my kid. I downloaded action figures or cars and customized them. I even made her an Infinity Gauntlet. I also made adapters for gas masks, covers for pipes, and simple little gadgets to make life easier around the house.
If something didn’t exist…
I could make it.
Blender still remained more of a hobby until last winter, when it finally occurred to me that I could drag it over to the work I was doing on survival and suburban homesteading. I could solve problems by modeling things out in Blender. I could use Blender to illustrate concepts.
I could use it to teach.
Blender is just the main program I use to create this work. I also use programs like Krita, Photoshop, InDesign, Scribus, and even ComicLife. These programs are all relatively difficult to learn depending on what you want to do with them. I’ve been learning them for years. I’m going to keep learning how to get better with them. In fact, I’ve gotten a lot better just over the last six months. It’s one reason why I decided to continue with a second version of my guide.
As for everything else:
Honestly, I think I’m done offering opinions about anything other than the most practical survival questions. What I’ve learned over the last two years is that the internet is not interested in nuanced opinions about… anything. Everyone is looking for the first chance to shame each other.
It’s almost like they enjoy it.
Well, I, for one, have lost any interest I ever had in commentary on politics, culture, elections, the climate crisis, AI, or anything else.
I’m here to do one thing now:
Solve your problems.
I’m not here to shout at political parties on my phone. Not anymore. I’m not here to slam moderates. I’m not here to slam the left or the right. I’m not here to tell you which way to vote, or whether you should vote at all. I’m not here to tell you who has it right or who’s just grandstanding. It doesn’t matter. The only real opinion I have about any of this: It’s awfully easy and awfully privileged to sit behind a screen and measure someone else’s morality. I’ve probably done that in the past, and I’m done with it. This won’t help us anymore.
I’m here to learn. I’m here to build. I’m here to illustrate. I’m here to teach. I’ll be using Blender and whatever other tools I can to help you. What really matters more than all these purity tests and moral vibes checks is that we continue to develop skills and help each other. That’s my purpose.
If you’re interested:
I’ve started working on the second edition of my guide. The launch has ended, but you can still make late pledges and become a backer. It’s going to have more information, more projects, more illustrations. It’s going to include different strategies and tips on leveraging these all-in-one battery systems. It’s going to be ready by May. I’ll be sure to post updates and info along the way.
