3D modelling
I’ve always loved drawing. No, I didn’t think of becoming an artist, drawing was just my hobby. I drew with pencils, paints, pens on sheets of paper, a stick in the sand, my finger on fogged glass. Then I found out that on the computer that I sometimes used, there was a downloaded program with which I could draw. I opened it and began to try my skills. I drew with a mouse, without a tablet, which no one in our family had at that time. I didn’t tell anyone that I was drawing on a computer. I did it for myself, not to show off. However, my scribbles were still discovered and my parents decided that I needed to download a better program. This is how Krita was downloaded and soon after that, a tablet was bought.
Once, in a conversation with me, they mentioned that you can make animations in Krita. Oh, how I was fired up by this idea! I already imagined myself showing a twenty-minute cartoon animated by me. How surprised everyone around me would be! How proud my parents would be of me, how happy I would be! And I eagerly set about my future masterpiece, as I thought then.
Alas, in reality, everything is far from so simple. I failed to create anything worthwhile, I must admit. Most of all, I did not want to redraw each frame separately for each character movement. And there are twenty-four frames in one second… If I wanted a twenty-minute cartoon, I would have to draw 1,728,000 frames. And since I wanted to make it in good quality, each of these frames took at least 10 minutes. Try drawing that much!
And then I turned to my parents with a question: are there programs with 3D space? Is it possible to make animations in them? Having received an affirmative answer with the caveat that the parents only knew about these programs that they existed, I started looking for information about them. What I saw did not really comfort me. The limits for all the programs were very expensive, and where is the guarantee that I will like 3D, I will learn to work in it and this money will not be wasted?
And then I came across Blender. It’s a free program for 3D modeling, animation, texturing, shading, rigging and much, much more. Oh, of course, it’s not necessarily capable of doing what another program designed specifically for this area can do in one area — for example, it’s worse at sculpting than Zbrash, which was created specifically for this. But the main thing is that it can do a lot, that it’s free, that it’s easy to use (Hello 3D Max with its menus that are impossible to find). Thus, Blender replaces dozens of programs and saves decent amounts of money for everyone who uses it! As for the fact that it doesn’t cope well with tasks — in my opinion, it’s ideal for those working alone or in a small team, because we, humans, cannot be specialists in everything. Therefore, Blender’s capabilities are more than enough for one person.
And to this day, I work in Blender. There is no need to redraw each frame separately, so the main problem that appeared when working with Krita is eliminated. I enjoy the process itself, I enjoy the result. That’s why I love 3D modeling and animation. Everything gives me pleasure. Even when I fail at something, I do not abandon 3D. I can put a project aside until better times, but soon I open Blender again to start a new one or continue another.
That’s all for now. Now I’m trying to make renders in realism and create short cartoons in a simple style. I hope my history has inspired you to some new projects, and maybe you yourself will decide to open Blender or Krita and start creating.
Crocheting
Here is more simple. I tried to crochet for a thirst time when I was three ore four years old. Well, I can’t say that I made something. I think that the moment I started learning seriously is may be when I was 10 years old. I started with tutorials from YouTube, after this I started crocheting my own toys. I was selling them, on websites ore offline. I think that my best toy is crochet horse named Asianta. Its photo was on one website. After few month it was staying there one women write me with offer me to help her crocheting to order. I answered «YES!!!» and started. After another few month one family bought this horse, and a little bit later another one family wanted it and made an order. To be honest, I was already tired of crocheting by order. Soon I stop crocheting to order.
Now I’m selling toys that I make when I want and how I want and I’m enjoying crocheting them. Also I sell amigurumi patterns of my own toys.
I hope you’ll crochet with me!
Reading
While I still couldn’t read, of course, my parents read aloud to me. I think that was one of the main reasons why I fell in love with books. I adored certain stories and tales and often asked to reread them.
I don’t remember exactly how I learned to read. I wasn’t taught specifically. I asked my mother: what letter is this, how to read it. In my memories, the ability to read gradually entered my life.
We didn’t have a TV by our own choice, only my mother and father had telephones. But we did have Zaitsev’s cubes with syllables, and books were lying everywhere. Of course, in such conditions it is difficult not to become interested in reading. I remember how, with my favorite book on my lap («Mole in the City»), I slowly read a short paragraph line by line, and when I came across a particularly long one, I asked my mother: «Please read it, it is too long!» Mom, of course, read aloud, and I listened. After reading this long paragraph, I always asked to read more: I really liked reading aloud. And because Mom read much faster than me, and because I liked the way Mom reads, I love listening to her voice. But Mom returned the book to me with the words: “The next one is not so long, I know you will read it yourself.” After these words, it was already a little awkward to say: “No, I can’t,” and I really wanted to know what would happen next. And I sat down again and read by myself. My father also made a great contribution to my upbringing, including through reading books. Sometimes we went away with tents, often just the two of us. For these trips, I had a book called “The Giant in the Meadow.” In the tent before going to bed, my father reread the same three favorite stories to me aloud. I adored these minutes. And then, sitting with the same book, I tried to read the stories again, this time by myself. I already knew them almost completely by heart, but I was always interested. Maybe it was the fact that I could retell them that helped me learn the letters and increase my reading speed: I could more or less orient myself where I was and how to read.
I think it was thanks to reading aloud that I became seriously interested in books. From a very early age, I already knew that books are really interesting (in the photo I am two years and three months old). Mom picked out warm, good stories, read them in a cozy atmosphere, and I had the best impressions. That is, I automatically associated a book with home comfort, with kindness, with something good.
On the contrary, the TV in the family was — and is — treated with disdain, as a box that takes all the attention and does harm. I learned much later that computer games exist, as well as about cartoons, films and other things that, thanks to serious technical progress, have entered our lives. Now I watch movies no more than once a week, usually Soviet or foreign, from the last century. I really like their atmosphere, sincerity and morality. By the way, I also like old books the most.
I guess today I rarely just sit and read. I usually do it while I’m rendering or while I’m knitting. I have a blog about books on VK, you can find the link to it by scrolling down the page.
Let’s set the computer to render, pick up some crochet and start reading!