DISLCAIMER: This post is a bit of a ramble. 2 years is a long time to dwell on a course and what it means to me. I hope you don't mind the personal transparency along with the important info!

First I want to thank you, the CG Cookie community, for your patience with me and the extremely lengthy production of the HUMAN course. This project has been my primary passion for two years. It’s been a very different endeavor than our modus operandi, and I’m deeply honored by the sentiments from many of you that the wait will be worth it 🧡

I’ve put everything I have into ensuring you’re right! I’ve never spent more than 4 months on a course. So you can imagine what 2 years can do for scope and depth. I promise two years was NOT me being lazy. I’ve never dug so deep into a topic before, never R&D’d so much, and never rehearsed techniques so thoroughly as I have with HUMAN.

I know there’s a lot of aspiring character artists in this community like me: Obsessed with crossing the uncanny value into compelling, photorealistic, entirely believable 3D characters. This course is my magnum opus on the subject. I truly cannot wait to share it with you and see what you all create out of this curriculum!

“OK but...what is HUMAN again?”

I’ve been openly discussing this course in livestreams and comments around this website since 2019, along with a blog article blurb, but I can only assume there’s some (maybe many) of you that don’t know about it.Please allow me to give some background:

My first tutorial course back in 2011 was also about portraits. As my first course, its quality isn’t great...OK it makes me cringe. It’s long overdue for a re-record. Coming back to the topic after all these years is a return-to-form for me; even sentimental in a way. Almost like a rebirth as an educator.

That is one reason I wanted to go BIG on HUMAN. Another reason for going BIG is that our usual course production time of 1-4 months is very limited in terms of depth that can be taught. Over my 8 years with CG Cookie there’s a lot of advanced course ideas that have built up with no way of being made in 1-4 months.

Then I witnessed Gleb and Aidy’s Space VFX course followed by their Hard Surface modeling course. I was utterly inspired by their quality and depth, wondering “how can they do this?!” Then I realized how much time they spent in production between course releases.

Time is the true economy after all. Depth and quality require significant time. So I pitched the idea to Wes for spending 1 year making a “mega” course. 2 years later HUMAN is here! 😅

Check out the teaser and trailer if you haven’t seen them yet:

Things to know about course availability

CGCOOKIE.COM is THE place to access our entire course library including HUMAN. We are also offering it as standalone purchases on the Blender Market. We’ve been doing this for years as it’s commonly requested by those not interested in subscribing. You may have noticed that the course is available for Pre-sale on the market from now till release. So what does this mean for Citizens?

All active Citizen members will have access to HUMAN on November 23rd. The Blender Market pre-sale is irrelevant as long as your subscription is active. BM customers get anAtomic and the 3 final portrait .blend files as a little something for pre-ordering. Likewise we’ve made those assets available to members on the Resources page. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

There’s also a bundle option for pre-sale on the BM that includes 6 pre-requisite courses to prepare students for HUMAN. All of these courses are available now to active members as well 👇

Pre-requisite Courses

I want to first say that I maintained a firm goal through the course's production to be inclusive of all experience levels. Even though it’s a very advanced subject, I still think beginners can and should be able to engage with it effectively. Many portrait courses (my first one included) assume the viewer knows a lot. Really to the point that only advanced artists know how to apply the information. I’m proud to say I was resolute to assume as little as possible. Hence the 25+ hours of video 😅

That said, I still think it’s wise to offer prerequisite courses to best prepare for HUMAN. Especially if you’re brand new to Blender or switching from another 3D app, these courses will familiarize you with foundational concepts and skills that portrait creation builds upon:

• Blender Basics: CGC’s singular starting point for all Blender beginners.
• Fundamentals of Digital Sculpting: Essential concepts for forming 3D organic shapes artistically, comparable to traditional clay methods. A fundamental understanding of sculpting with Blender is important for beginning chapter 1 strong.
• Fundamentals of Mesh Modeling: Essential concepts for polygonal mesh modeling. This relates to retopology, mesh structure concepts, and modeling for the portrait’s glasses in chapter 2.
• Fundamentals of Texturing: Essential concepts like UV-unwrapping, image textures, and procedural textures. This is especially relevant to chapter 3.
• Fundamentals of Materials & Shading: Essential concepts for material creation and rendering. This is especially relevant to chapter 3.
• Fundamentals of Digital Lighting: Essential concepts for lighting and rendering. This is especially relevant to Chapter 5.

If you're a member and interested in learning from HUMAN, go ahead and start watching these courses if you haven't already!

Recommendation for learning from HUMAN

There’s no sugar-coating it: Achieving realistic portrait results is extremely difficult. Even after 17 years of experience I’m not perfect at it. And I’d argue that no one actually is - not even the best of the best. But every portrait project teaches us new things and refines our process significantly. This challenge and perpetual education is what makes it such a rewarding pursuit!

There’s one key recommendation I want to offer you to ensure best educational results: Please do so patiently! Take your time watching and applying the same way I took my time teaching it. That’s right: If you’re not still watching this course 24 months later you’re doing it wrong.

No no, of course not! All I mean is please don’t expect to watch it through once as a long list of step-by-step instructions that will produce the exact same result from the videos. As with any complex art form and craft, patience in learning and practice is the key to success. And I desperately want to witness the fruits of your success!

Specifically I recommend watching through the whole course once casually; no Blender open and maybe not even at a desk. Do it on your couch with popcorn at 1.5-2x speed. The reason for this casual watch is for you to get a bird’s-eye-view of the complete workflow before attempting to follow along. Seeing the big picture first will give much-needed context to the plethora of small tasks and techniques.

After your initial viewing, I recommend practicing each chapter by itself at least twice before going to the next. So for chapter 1 you should sculpt at least 2 heads from scratch. For chapter 2 retopo and detail two separate times, etc. The unfortunate (or fortunate?) rule of practice is that the second attempt is always better than the first, third is better than the second, etc. Trust me I struggle with this rule. BUT I only have experience that proves it to be true. The more you practice each chapter the better your final result and the longer-lasting your education will be.

For more info please check the Blender Market FAQ page.

Remember, remember the 23rd of November

I’m beyond excited to share this course with you! I hope you find my passion for the art of portraiture contagious and my dedication to demystifying it effective for your learning. Again, I truly cannot wait to see what you do with it!