Blender — 12-Week Practice Schedule¶

Designed for 20 minutes daily, 5 days a week. Skip weekends without guilt — the spacing helps consolidation. Mark off each day; honest tracking is the point.

How to use this page

Don't try to do every checkbox. The schedule is a floor, not a ceiling. If you only get 3 of 5 days in a week, log it in the journal and move on.

Day 1: Quickstart (30 min one-time investment)
Day 2: Practice G/R/S + axis lock (X/Y/Z) on 3 different primitives
Day 3: Selection drills — A / Alt+A / B (box) / C (circle) / Alt+click (loop)
Day 4: Add 5 different primitives via Shift+A; rename each in the Outliner
Day 5: Save/load drill — save 3 different .blend files in 3 folders; reopen each

Week 2 — Edit Mode fundamentals¶

Day 1: Loop cuts (Ctrl+R), inset (I), extrude (E) on a cube
Day 2: Bevel (Ctrl+B) — try with 1, 3, 6 segments
Day 3: Knife (K), merge by distance, fill (F)
Day 4: Recalculate normals (Shift+N); spot-check with backface culling on
Day 5: Shade Smooth vs Flat; auto-smooth angle setting

Week 3 — Modifiers (non-destructive)¶

Day 1: Subdivision Surface — viewport vs. render levels
Day 2: Mirror — symmetric primitive modeling
Day 3: Array — duplicate along an axis or curve
Day 4: Solidify — give a flat plane thickness
Day 5: Boolean (Exact mode) — union and difference

Week 4 — Project: low-poly stylized prop¶

Day 1: Pick reference (one object: chair, mug, lamp); collect 3 photos
Day 2: Blockout with primitives + transforms (no Edit Mode yet)
Day 3: Convert blockout to Edit Mode; add loop cuts where form turns
Day 4: Bevel sharp edges; apply Subsurf
Day 5: Render in EEVEE Next; save preview PNG; journal the result

Week 5 — Materials and the Shader Editor (intro)¶

Day 1: Read Shader Usage
Day 2: Build a Principled BSDF with base color, roughness, metallic
Day 3: Add an Image Texture; connect via Texture Coordinate + UV
Day 4: Add a Noise Texture → ColorRamp → Base Color
Day 5: Make a node group from your noise + ramp; expose Scale and Color inputs

Week 6 — UV unwrapping¶

Day 1: Mark seams on a cube; unwrap (U); inspect in UV Editor
Day 2: Unwrap a UV sphere — try Smart UV Project as comparison
Day 3: Unwrap your Week-4 prop; check stretch overlay
Day 4: Pack islands; export UV layout PNG
Day 5: Apply image texture using your unwrap (PNG with checker pattern from texturecan.com or similar)

Week 7 — Topology focus¶

Day 1: Read Topology end-to-end; print or PDF for reference
Day 2: Model an ear from photo reference, all quads, < 500 verts
Day 3: Model a hand blockout, focusing on knuckle/wrist edge loops
Day 4: Model a face blockout, eye + mouth loops only (very rough)
Day 5: Apply Subsurf to each above; spot pinches; identify each pole; journal the lessons

Week 8 — Sculpting (intro)¶

Day 1: Sphere → Sculpt Mode; brush tour (Draw, Grab, Smooth, Crease, Pinch)
Day 2: Dyntopo on; rough out a creature head in 20 min
Day 3: Multires modifier on a low-poly base; subdivide 2 levels; add details
Day 4: Mask painting; symmetry; alphas (skin pore, scratch)
Day 5: Decimate output to manageable poly count; export OBJ

Week 9 — Lighting and rendering¶

Day 1: 3-point lighting setup (key, fill, rim) in Cycles
Day 2: HDRI lighting via World Environment Texture
Day 3: EEVEE Next vs Cycles A/B comparison on the same scene
Day 4: Render passes (diffuse, glossy, normal, depth); export multilayer EXR
Day 5: Compositing — color balance, vignette, grain on a render

Week 10 — Geometry Nodes (first system)¶

Day 1: Read Tutorial Level 4 Geometry Nodes
Day 2: Distribute Points on Faces → Instance on Points (cube on a plane)
Day 3: Random rotation + scale per instance via Random Value
Day 4: Replace cube with collection of 3 rock meshes; Pick Instance on
Day 5: Expose density, scale range, seed as group inputs; make it a reusable group

Week 11 — Rigging and animation (intro)¶

Day 1: Add Armature; extrude bones to match a simple character; name with .L/.R
Day 2: Parent mesh with automatic weights; check in Pose Mode
Day 3: Weight paint fixes — wrist, shoulder, hip
Day 4: Keyframe a 2-second animation; review F-curves in Graph Editor
Day 5: Render preview animation as MP4

Week 12 — Project: ship something¶

Day 1: Decide what to ship — a prop set, a procedural environment, a character bust
Day 2–4: Build it. End-to-end. No new tutorials this week
Day 5: Publish — render, upload to ArtStation/sketchfab/personal site, or just save to a portfolio folder; journal what you'd do differently

After Week 12 — what to do next¶

Decide your next quarter focus (refer to now.md). Possible directions:
Hard surface specialization — Hard Ops, weighted normals, baking workflows.
Character pipeline — sculpt → retopo → rig → animate → game export.
Procedural environments — deeper Geometry Nodes + World Building.
Technical art — shaders + node programming (see Blender Shaders & Nodes).
Update now.md with your Q3 deliverable.
Spend 30 min reviewing your journal for patterns. Improvements are usually visible at this scale.