Blender for Beginners: Model and Render Your First 3D Scene

In this class you’ll go from opening Blender for the first time to rendering a finished 3D scene: a ceramic mug on a table, lit like a product photo, with a smooth turntable animation. You’ll learn to navigate the viewport, model with Edit Mode tools and modifiers, create realistic materials, light a scene, and render both stills and video.

This class is for complete beginners and for 2D artists, designers, and hobbyists who have been curious about 3D but felt intimidated by Blender’s interface. Blender is free, and any reasonably recent computer will work. A mouse with a scroll wheel is strongly recommended.

By the end you’ll have a portfolio-ready render of your own still-life scene and a short looping animation to share. Just as importantly, you’ll understand the core workflow that every bigger Blender project builds on, so you can keep learning with confidence.

Model, light, and render a simple still-life scene built around a mug you design yourself.

• Model a mug with a handle, a table surface, and one or two simple props.
• Give every object a material using the Principled BSDF shader.
• Light the scene with a three-point setup.
• Render one hero still image as a PNG.
• Render a five-second turntable animation and share both with the class.