The Blender community is a vibrant global passion of humans succeeding with Blender and contributing to the culture's success by sharing assets and experiences.
This got me thinking: if I were to download seven free Blender Models today, which would they be?
In my approach to downloading 3D models, I’ve found they can serve several purposes: enabling you to study other artists’ approaches to creating something and seeing how they approach topology or texturing can help inspire your own creations. Depending on the license, models can speed up workflow, help you prototype quicker, or help spark ideas in your work.
In this article, I searched the internet for seven models that grabbed my attention and could be freely downloaded.
1. NASA Land Rover Persaverance
Perseverance is a car-sized rover launched on July 30, 2020, as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission. There is a whole site dedicated to the Perseverance mission.
Fun fact: Perseverance been on Mar for 920 solar days (SOLs) as of writing this.
It’s a detailed model to check out and explore directly in Blender. They even supply a .blend that is very handy.
2. Motorcycle Model by animanyarty
Motorcycles have been part of my life for a couple of decades. They can be an incredible exercise to build realistic or cartoon. This model is an excellent example of different modeling techniques and how the artist intersected meshes instead of attempting to make them all from a single mesh.
⬇️ Download or view 3D model of the Motorcycle on SketchFab
3. Module Airducts by James Ray Cock
The fact that it's modular means that you can piece the components together as you wish to build as simple or as complex a configuration as you want, depending on what kind of scene you're building (simple building vs. industrial cyberpunk hellscape labyrinth)
4. The Plant Library by BD3D
The Plant Library offers over 170 high-quality vegetation assets ready for rendering, offered by the team behind GeoScatter.
I've found it suitable for beginners and professionals; this free collection includes diverse plant models ranging from lawns and forests to desert vegetation.
The good news is that it's compatible with the Blender asset browser; set the path to the .blend file in Blender preferences to add these assets to your library for easy drag-and-drop usage.
5. Stylized Beetle Car by Split Studios
I’d categorize this model as inspirational. The topology from top to bottom is clean and just fun to look at. It’s painted using a free Blender Add-on. What I really love about this is how many car models do we see online, and this one still stands out from it’s presentation and style.
6. 3D Printable Viking Lander from NASA
NASA has been working on converting some of the 3D Models into .stl format so we can 3D Print them with Blender. It also comes with printing instructions.
The Viking Lander was the first spacecraft we sent as humans that successfully landed on the surface of Mars and sent us photos.
This could be it if you're looking for a fun 3D Printing project.
This could be it if you're looking for a fun 3D Printing project.
7. 3D Pig Model and Animations by VFX Grace
One of my favorite movies is Charlotte's Web, which features some of the best animation CG I've ever seen. It's a 17-year-old movie but it still holds up well.
I had to download this model to give it a try. I mainly wanted to work with a higher-resolution model and gain experience working with animations.
I had to download this model to give it a try. I mainly wanted to work with a higher-resolution model and gain experience working with animations.
Bonus: Cubicity Asset Library
This is a selfish plug. Still, I must say if you’re interested in downloading close to 50 adorable city assets to begin building a city of your own, prototype for a game, or even contribute your own Blender models to the Cubicity library, this is a fun one, and worth checking out.
In Conclusion
As artists, it can feel like cheating to download pre-built assets to help speed up our workflow or being self-critical, believing we must build everything. It’s simply not true.
Downloading 3D Models can be a great way to level up as an artist, get inspired, and build your network. If you enjoyed the model you just downloaded, or it was helpful in some way give a shout-out to the creator of the asset.
Additionally, I’d encourage you to pay it forward by sharing assets and 3D models you create with the Blender community when you can.
Together, we can keep growing the Blender community, encouraging others to get started and elevating them.
Happy Blending! 🍪
- Wes
