9.5/10 Best for: The Blender user who has mastered the interface but hasn't yet mastered the human (or humanoid) form.
Furthermore, this course does not cover rigging or animation. It ends with a static, posed render. Rigging is covered in follow-up CG Cookie courses. Consider a game studio hiring a junior character artist. They don't ask if you can sculpt a bust. They ask if you can model a character with clean topology that doesn't crash the render engine or distort during animation. CG Cookie - Introduction to Character Modeling in Blender
CG Cookie’s course addresses this head-on. It doesn't assume you want to make hyper-realistic AAA game characters on day one. Instead, it focuses on discipline . Unlike courses that switch characters mid-way, this class follows a single, cohesive project: building a stylized, animation-ready character from scratch. The final model is a charming, bipedal creature/human hybrid (often a stylized "hero" asset) that teaches universal principles applicable to any character—human, monster, or robot. Rigging is covered in follow-up CG Cookie courses
The result? Creases where there shouldn't be creases, pinching around the eyes, elbows that collapse into origami, and a mesh that looks like a melted action figure. The student doesn't lack effort; they lack edge flow literacy . They ask if you can model a character
This article breaks down the course structure, its unique teaching philosophy, why it stands out in a sea of YouTube tutorials, and whether it’s the right launchpad for your 3D journey. Before analyzing the course, it’s important to understand the problem it solves. Most new Blender users fall into the "Suzanne Trap"—they model a few primitive objects, follow a donut tutorial, and then immediately try to model a human face.
If you are tired of your characters looking like melted plastic and want to build models that move, breathe, and animate cleanly, this course is your starting line.