Blender 2.8 Model a Lightsaber for Beginners

In this lesson, we look at how to create meshes with hard or soft surfaces to really bring out the details of our designs using sharps. We also take a short look at the process of marking seams within Blender 2.8.

We finish off our small red lightsaber hilt in this lesson. As we move through the course, we will start to use more of the Blender 2.8 UI and pick up key skills along the way.

In lesson 4 we take a look at how to create the lightsabre hand grip. We use skills we have learned from previous lessons like insert and extrude to really put our Blender skills to the test.

In this lesson we move up to the middle of the lightsabre and look at how to intricate the buttons effectively. We look at Blender functions like Boolean modifier. We start to look at more technical aspects of Blender 2.8.

Lesson 6 we finish modelling our lightsaber controls. We finish both buttons off in this lesson and I show you how to do this using Blender functions effectively.

Lesson 7 is all about finishing our lightsaber controls. We use all the skills we have learned within Blender so far to really give them that realistic look within our model.

In this lesson, we look at creating the small lightsaber shaft. We look at Blender 2.8 functions such as solidify and how Blender renders meshes. We do this through looking at how to flip our normal faces.

Lesson 9 and we are on to creating the power coil for our lightsaber. We use Blender 2.8 array modifier to achieve this with great effect. We start to really see our 3D model coming together now.

This lesson is all about creating the top part of our lightsaber 3D model. Again like the bottom of the lightsaber, we try to go all out and create a great looking ornate piece. I think by this lesson if you were a beginner it will be apparent how far your Blender skills have come.

Lesson 11 we are on the home straight of finishing our 3D lightsaber model. In this lesson, we look at our lightsaber from a technical standpoint and look at ways to model in such a way as to give the illusion of strength in 3D models.

In this lesson, we finish off our first lightsaber 3D model. We create the top with a solid looking design and experiment to give the lightsaber a unique look.

In lesson 13 we take our first look at creating UV’s for our lightsaber’s. We look at the professional way of achieving this in Blender 2.8 and what we can do to speed up workflow. You will also learn how to keep resolutions coherent across your 3D models.

We really build up the complexity of our UV’s in this lesson and look at how average island scale and pack islands works in Blender 2.8. we start to speed up the process along the way.

As we work our way down our small Lightsaber we go through the problems marking seams and creating UV’s in Blender you may face and how to overcome them. We learn what makes a good UV island.

We start work on the lightsaber power core and also look at the most complex part of our 3D model so far as regards to UV unwrapping. We experiment with different techniques to achieve a solid UV.

In lesson 17 we really start to pick up the pace as our Blender skills develop. You should find at this point that UV’ing and marking seams are a breeze. Realistically from this point, you should have the skills to unwrap most 3D models.

The mid-part of our lightsaber model includes the buttons and control system. We breeze through these in one lesson making sure all the time to use a professional workflow within our 3D model.

Lesson 19 and we mark our seam on the handle. We make short work of this and even manage to complete part of the bottom of the lightsaber.

The last lesson in marking seams and UV mapping our first lightsaber 3D model. We have now learned pretty much all of the Blender 2.8 key skills when it comes to mapping 3D models.

We import our duel lightsaber reference in this lesson and look at how we can use as many of the meshes from our first lightsaber as possible. Lesson 21 is where we begin our duel lightsaber.

In lesson 22 we create our mid part and power coil of our duel lightsaber using the Blender skills from our previous lightsaber 3D model to speed up our workflow.

Lesson 23 and it is on to the hand part of our duel lightsaber 3D model. We recreate a new one here specifically designed for this model. At this point you will see how easy we make this in comparison with our first lightsaber.

In this lesson we start to use a lot of parts from our first lightsaber, but we also learn how to quickly and easily modify part to create a unique look to our duel lightsaber.

In lesson 25 we work on the lightsabre guard. We look at ways to use Blender to give it a real sci-fi feel to it. We also experiment with sharps and creating the right look for our 3D model.

We start work on the top of our duel lightsabre trying to create a distinct look but different to our other smaller lightsabre. Again, we look at this from a technical standpoint and would it function correctly if it was real.

Lesson 27 is where we finish our duel lightsabre. We make good use of Blender's mirror modifier. We make our final adjustments to our 3D model before moving on to marking our seams.

Lesson 28 is where we start to mark our seams on the duel lightsabre. Here you will make much faster progress than the first one as you get to grips with most of the Blender 2.8 UI.

In lesson 29 we carry on our Blender journey in UV unwrapping. We have to test our skills and look at inventive ways of unwrapping troublesome meshes which may show up in other 3D models you create.

Once again in this lesson, we will be carrying on with marking seams and creating our UV island this is the lesson before we say goodbye to UVs. We are marking seams at a rapid pace at this point.

The final lesson on marking seams and creating UV islands for our lightsaber’s finally here. In this lesson we also look at how to create texture resolutions that are the same across all of our blender models and keep our workflow consistent and fast.

Lesson 32 is our introduction to materials within blender 2.8. We look at the Blender node system and how the each map functions from the resource pack which comes with this lightsabre course.

In lesson 33 we start to prepare for bringing all materials into our lightsabre project. We look take a brief look at lighting our scene and finish up creating what will become our material template.

In lesson 34 we set up our basic studio lighting set and also how to actually light our lightsabers to make them look as realistic as possible. We look at the Blender material node emission and configure our options in the Eevee renderer tab.

Lesson 35 is all about getting all our materials into our lightsabre project and get them set up correctly. Once we have done this, we quickly move along adding materials to our duel lightsaber.

In lesson 36 we finish adding materials to our duel lightsaber and I show you a great Blender and 3D modeling technique of speeding up the second part of the process. We look over our model making sure that it does the name lightsaber justice.

In lesson 37 we make a start on our small lightsaber and actually finish half of it in this lesson. At this stage, you should very accustomed to the Blender UI when it comes to creating and adding materials.

Lesson 38 is the last lesson we will need to do work on materials in this Blender lightsaber project. We take one last look at perfecting our lightsaber models before we move on to rendering.

In lesson 39 we render out our Small lightsaber using the Blender new Eevee rendering engine. We create two renders one with the lightsaber beam on and one where it is switched off. This should make a great looking portfolio piece.

We finish our renders in lesson 40. We now have a render for both our duel and small lightsaber. We will only be using the Blender Eevee renderer, unlike my other courses where we dealt with Blender cycles.

This is the start of our animation lessons. We start by going through all of the key aspects to animating within Blender 2.8. We create our first rig for our small lightsaber.

In lesson 42 we create the rigging to animate our more complex duel lightsaber. We look at how to mirror bones simply in Blender 2.8. This is the last lesson in rigging, and we are now ready for animation.

In lesson 43 we get our first taste at actual animation within Blender 2.8. We learn about keyframes and timelines. We then move on and animate out our small lightsaber beam. It’s a simple yet effective animation.

This is the final lesson of the course and is mainly devoted to animating our duel lightsaber out. I show you how to create animations that can then be taken into any Blender project and how we can move our lightsaber’s in any direction without effecting the beam. Finally, I thank all my students for taking part in this Blender 2.8 lightsaber course.