do you always get stuck when you try to 3D model something no matter what you try something always seems to be wrong so what if I told you that there's a method used by experts to 3D model almost anything from water bottles to shoes stick around because in the next 7 minutes I'll teach you what that method is and at the end I'll show you something that will help with everything you do let's dive in before we get into the actual modeling there is one step that comes first without it your models would quickly start to look lopsided and out of proportion but what is it reference images I used to just Skip and not use them but they can make a huge difference I usually put them directly in my viewport by adding reference under image I'll call this the tracing method and you should use it in combination with the other Methods at a minimum you need a top side and front view of what you're trying to model but it's really helpful when you have more another method of gathering reference is creating a board of images of what you're trying to model using the software pure ref or another like it you can create a panel of images that help guide you through the modeling process the final method of gathering reference is getting a physical version of your object this is a lot better than the previous two because you can turn it to get any view you want want and you don't have to switch between blender and your image board doing something like modeling an object on your desk gets rid of the hassle of gathering reference and it's a great way to improve your modeling skills but all three of these methods are crucial to everything you do next so don't overlook them now that we've gathered reference it's time to start modeling but not in the way you might think many beginners try to add every little detail right from the start but that makes the model hard to change later on for example these shoes have laces holes where the laces go through white threads and so many more minute features the first modeling stage is simply blocking out your mod without any details don't worry about the geometry of your object for now Edge flow and good to poly don't matter yet but because I'm using the shoe as an example it could look something like this here it's vital to use your reference images because you'll be building off of this space model later on if you've never modeled off of reference images before you want to set them up like this and in most cases create a plane once you rotate it and scale it you can start to move the vertices and make extrusions to fit the overall shape of one reference image next go into another side view and adjust it again shaping it to that reference image your you're almost tracing those images in each 3D dimmension while doing this remember to go into the 3D view every now and then to see if your object looks correct in some cases you might have multiple parts to your object and for that you should use multiple objects with these shoes I obviously wasn't going to combine the laces with the shoe itself but once you're done with the basic detailing it's time for the next stage the third part second if you don't count Gathering reference is kind of a half stage you're finding your blackout you can choose to skip it if you're confident with your base model but I'd advise doing it only because it helps later on here you want to sort out any really messy geometry and refine the shape of the object even further you might even redo part of your object entirely if it's unfixable this was obviously a quick stage so let's get on to the next one now things get a little different because your mesh is probably messy it's time to fix that and create good geometry a good-looking object and good Edge flow and in case you didn't know Edge flow is the way the edges flow along an object the way to do that is with retopology and before you go retopology this isn't like retopologizing massive sculpts or anything like that if your blackout mesh is already looking good I recommend skipping to The Next Step but for more complex objects this is usually necessary there are add-ons to make life easier for you but I find it easy enough to just make a plane and shape it to the object using face project under snap individual elements too over here this way whatever you do to your plane it will always wrap around your object like you did with the reference images make extrusions along your object this time thinking about clean geometry try to keep every face to a similar size and try even harder to only use quads which your faces with four edges here Edge flows your main focus so if there's something like a hole in your object make the edges wrap around that hole for example you can also add a subdivision modifier to your object to smooth it out while keeping clean geometry this can take some time but believe me it's worth it your mesh will not only look better in the end but it'll be easier to alter this next step is another half step and is optional if your blockout was funky your reach topology might look a little uneven to fix this you can apply the subdivision modifier to the object head over to sculpt mode and use the smooth brush to you CEST it smooth out the object if that SC something you can also use the grab tool to shape your mesh further this is obviously more intuitive than moving individual vertices and edges and it's a great way to shape your object so it's ready for detail this is me editing I forgot to mention that you can get your low topology back by adding the decimate modifier to your sculpted object once you add it click unsubdivided increase levels to make your object low poly again but let's get back to it and after everything you've done you're ready for the final stage by now your model should be looking pretty good but one thing is still missing detail this whole time you've been setting yourself up for the this step so it shouldn't be as bad as if you tried at the very beginning at the beginning of the video I also mentioned something that I give you that would help you through the whole process and that's something is creativity no two things in 3D are created in the same way and to figure out what you need to do you need to be creative using these shoes as an example I could have added these threads in a variety of ways but what I ended up doing was solidifying and subdividing a bunch of little faces I'd of course never done that before but I was creative and it ended up nicely at the detailing stage creativity is crucial and because you're only 3D modeling what you're making not creating the actual thing don't worry about little stuff you can't see on the inside of the shoes it's just empty sadly I can't teach this stage as well as I like but if you creatively find ways to add detail your object should be finished take a deep breath you're done hopefully your object should look pretty good after using this method but I have one last thing to tell you even after everything sometimes I'm not satisfied with what I've made so I delete everything and start again the real lesson of this video should be that expertise and realism come only after hard work and failed attempts are also better revisions but once you have a good model one thing stands between you and rendering materials and this video here will help you with that