- Unlimited access to the Skillshare catalog
- Free 30-day trial
- No-questions-asked cancellation
Today, we will be reviewing our selection of the best free online 3D Blender courses. There’s something for everyone – whether you are only now getting started or already sharpening your existing Blender skills. All of the online courses on this list are available on Skillshare.
So, why Skillshare in particular?
There are online Blender classes available on other online learning platforms, such as Udemy, but today we’ll be focusing on Skillshare for two simple reasons:
- Skillshare’s Blender courses can be taken for free (if completed within their free 30-day trial, which should be no problem for all of the courses on this list);
- Skillshare has the very best selection of online Blender classes on the market.
To get the best value out of the recommendations on our list, we recommend you enroll in Skillshare’s 30-day free trial once you’re ready to start learning. A month goes by quickly, so try to make a dedicated effort to soak up as much knowledge as you can during this period. And if you want to continue beyond the free trial, the monthly price is not exorbitantly high, especially if you pay for an annual plan (and if you’re lucky, they will have a special offer to get the price down further).
Get 30% off of a Premium Skillshare Membership
Test Skillshare for free with no-questions-asked cancellation: 30-day free trial
Before we continue with our recommendations, let’s examine some prerequisites for learning Blender through online classes, together with some excellent reasons to start learning Blender in the first place.
What are the prerequisites for learning Blender online?
One of the greatest strengths of Blender as a modeling software is its accessibility. Unlike other modeling software, it’s 100% free to download and open-source by design. Thus, the prerequisites for learning Blender online are rather insignificant.
To learn Blender with these online courses, all you need is the following:
- Desktop or laptop computer with Windows, macOS, or Linux. The hardware requirements can be found on the Blender website.
- Blender software. It’s fully open-source and free, available for download on the Blender website.
If you’ve got those two things covered – you’re all set to take advantage of these online classes.
There are excellent online Blender classes on this list for all experience levels. Therefore, you’re sure to find appropriate courses on this list for yourself – no matter if you are a complete novice when it comes to 3D modeling and animation or already know your way among the endless possibilities of Blender.
Now, let’s have a quick look at why you would want to take online Blender courses in the first place.
Why should you take an online Blender course?
It’s easy to get the impression that 3D modeling is just for creating video game characters for game development. While that is, of course, a major – and lucrative – application for 3D modeling, it is far from the only use of Blender software.
An ever-increasing part of our lives – whether for professional or entertainment purposes – relies on creative digital visual media. The know-how to create iconic characters, stunning visual effects, animations, or virtual environments will just keep increasing in demand.
That is why enrolling in a good Blender course will help you across a wide range of industries and applications. And the best thing about learning Blender, in particular, is that it’s free and open-source. Combine that with the free online Blender courses on this list, and you’re all set to develop a new career path without spending a dime.
The knowledge and skills you gain while doing so will be instrumental, whether it’s for game development, movie applications, sculpting, virtual reality, or visual effects. All things considered, Blender is incredibly versatile.
The types of digital assets you can create with Blender are only limited by your imagination. With the help of Blender, you could create:
- Modeling animations for your YouTube channel;
- Making characters or doodads for that game you’ve always thought of creating for iOS or Android;
- Creating your very own unique animated 3D avatar for VRChat.
In the following video, you will see an example highlight of what 3D modeling in Blender can accomplish (created by students from Gnomon School in Hollywood):
The possibilities are truly endless – all you need is a little know-how. And, with the best online Blender courses on this list, you can do exactly that.
What are the 5 best online Blender courses?
Best Blender Courses
Best Beginner Course: Blender 3D: Your First 3D Character
Get 30% off of a Premium Skillshare Membership
Test Skillshare for free with no-questions-asked cancellation: 30-day free trial
The first course we’d recommend is “Blender 3D: Your First 3D Character” offered by Remington Markham. This online course will get you started in learning the ropes of Blender in no time. As an experienced animator knowledgeable in 3D and 2D modeling, Remington will teach you how to get going. With his help, you will go through the entire workflow of Blender in order to design, create and texture your first character.
As for the instructor, Remington, he is a well-known face in the Blender community. He has tens of thousands of followers on his YouTube channel and Instagram page, and he is currently working as creative director at mographmentor.com.
Now, let’s get back to the course.
Remington’s class will get you started on the most important basics of character creation from start to finish. The course will also show you how to create a rotating video of your designed character (you will love those rotating videos to show off your characters from every angle – be it for a slow-motion shot or a future 3D portfolio!)
This course clocks in at just about an hour – a very manageable length to get going. At a steady 82% of reviewers either voting the course as having their expectations met or exceeded, this one is very much worth your time. And, as is the case with all the courses on this list, it can be taken for free.
Also, as it appears, other students who’ve taken this course agree. “Everything was perfect for me. For someone new to Blender this really helped me learn the basics.“ says user Dothacknet who felt the class exceeded his expectations. Their sentiment is shared by motion designer Jonas, saying “I liked it quite a lot! As a Blender beginner, it was very interesting to get a glimpse of Remington’s workflow.“ We also feel like Scott’s review summarized it well, saying that the course was “Fantastic to under the very basics of box modeling for characters, thoroughly enjoyable! “
To cap it off, let’s take a look at some of the fantastic class projects from students who completed this course:
Best for Scene Building: Blender 2.8: Your first day - get the basics right
Get 30% off of a Premium Skillshare Membership
Test Skillshare for free with no-questions-asked cancellation: 30-day free trial
After learning (or re-learning!) the ropes with Remington, we recommend “Blender 2.8: Your first day – get the basics right” by Film VFX. The crew over at Film VFX are experts in cinematography, video editing, and of course – 3D modeling in Blender.
We strongly recommend this course to expand your knowledge after developing a solid understanding of the basics. That is why this course complements our first pick perfectly – with “Blender 3D: Your First 3D Character”, you’ll learn the fundamentals, and with this course from Film VFX, you can take a deeper dive into more advanced topics of Blender.
The instructors of this class will help you learn the following:
- The 3D modeling workflow;
- Using reference images;
- Lighting your scene
- Rendering your scene (this is when you apply the lighting, camera angle, and your model plus textures to create a finalized image).
This course clocks in at around 1 hour 50 minutes, hitting a good balance between a crash course and a comprehensive course. It also boasts an impressive 94% met or exceeded expectations rating from learners, of which over 50% voted exceeded expectations. A hard score to beat.
Now, let’s take a look at a selection of student reviews for “Blender 2.8: Your first day – get the basics right”.
This high score appears to be reflected in the written reviews, as Tana writes: “As an absolute beginner, this was the perfect way to get started and get a nice first result! “marking itas a great course to get started. Student Taylor was also impressed by the results, saying: “Really amazing! Took me from zero to my first render in barely any time at all! And it came out looking GOOD! “. Another student, Grace, said the following: “I had been trying to accomplish the results of a full Blender tutorial from different sources, teachers, and languages. This is the first time I am able to finish with a result. “
As it appears, this online course has benefitted many – which is why we feel it’s easily deserving of a place among the top-rated online Blender courses.
To give you a visual example of what this course teaches, take a look at some wonderful class projects from students who finished the course:
Best for Animation: Introduction to 3D Animation With Blender
Get 30% off of a Premium Skillshare Membership
Test Skillshare for free with no-questions-asked cancellation: 30-day free trial
Time to get into one of the most fun applications of Blender – animations. The online class “Introduction to 3D Animation With Blender” is superb for getting into 3D animations, and it’s led by experts from EduCraft Ideas.
This class will help you get a solid foundation for animating both living and inanimate assets in Blender. You will be creating your solar system, a nighttime scene with moving clouds and a gorgeous rising moon. And you’ll also learn how to quickly animate a character with Blender’s toolset.
This course runs a solid 3 hours and takes you through the entire process, from rigging your character and animating all the way to rendering the final results. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better course for learning animating in Blender.
This course is very suitable for complete beginners and assumes no prior knowledge. If you want to get right into animating and start experimenting, this course truly is a great place to start.
Now, let’s take a quick look at some reviews from other students. Course teacher William Harrison receives strong praise from Guilherme, saying that “I like the energy of the teacher, super enthusiastic and inspiring.”, while Tim states, “I definitely recommend for other beginners.“
Most Comprehensive: Learn Blender 3D - become an artist by creating over 50 models
Get 30% off of a Premium Skillshare Membership
Test Skillshare for free with no-questions-asked cancellation: 30-day free trial
This course boasts a staggering 13-hour run time (very high for Skillshare, where most courses run much shorter than that) and is aptly named “Learn Blender 3D – become an artist by creating over 50 models“, presented by Joe Baily. Joe Baily is an experienced online tutor with a large collection of online courses under his belt.
During the course, you’ll be faced with fifty of Joe Baily’s course challenges, all designed to help you get a hang of pretty much all the major and minor features of Blender. And, of course, to give you the foundation to create any model for any purpose.
As Bruce Lee once said, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
This idea is also at the heart of this course, as the instructor made sure that you practice basic techniques over and over from multiple angles in order to truly master them. Practice makes perfect – even in Blender.
In this course, you will get an in-depth tutorial series on Blender for modeling, sculpting, scene creation, 3D printing, architecture, animation, and much more.
We are truly impressed with this course and how all-encompassing it is – a must-have for any beginner-to-intermediate learner of Blender. This is also apparent from the online student reviews of this Blender class:
“Good course, especially for beginners. […] Tons of exercises; definitely not one of those courses which drone on and on about the theory, “comments Sam, praising the hands-on approach. Fronpe offers praise as well and gives a tip for future students, saying: “If you are a complete newbie to the 3D world, it’s perfect in every way. He explains absolutely everything.“
The only thing to keep in mind, as this course is longer than the others, is that you keep up the practice and go through more than one model per day if you are hoping to finish it within the free Skillshare trial.
And once again, here’s a selection of class projects from students who took this course:
As you see, the world of 3D modeling and everything you can do with it is truly vast. We wish you success in your Blender journey, and we hope to see your work in the future, be it in a game, movie, or online media.
