Look at this handsome devil. That's me! I was born about four decades ago. That makes me ancient to some of you, but at the same time still young to others. I live in the south of the Netherlands, which obviously is the best part of the country. I have a cat that I named MissPoes. I've been working in IT for most of my working career, but long before that, when I was still a kid, I was already really into computers and later on the internet. You could say that I fit the "nerd/geek" category perfectly, and I'm proud of it.

I'm very thankful that I got to experience a period in time where we all went from no internet, to internet everywhere. Growing up and becoming a young adult during the awesome 90's is pretty much the best thing that has ever happened to me. All the years since then have just been a bonus. Currently, my life is not really that exciting to talk about. Also, I have run out of ideas about what personal facts I want to mention here. So I prefer to talk a bit about the path that has led me to the point I'm currently at in my life, when it comes to my passion for 3D.

I first started using VR during the early summer of 2021 with my Oculus Quest2 VR set. This instantly made me realize that the period of time, that I used to dream of when I was younger, had finally arrived. The time to get back in to 3D modeling that is. From that moment on I've been spending most of my free time on experimenting and practicing 3D modeling as well as learning all that I can on Blender. It resulted in me re-discovering my passion 3D. I say re-discovered because many years ago, as a teenager, I had a taste of the world of 3D. This was during a time when our computers ran on MSDOS. The app was called 3DStudio 4 by Autodesk. *¹

After seeing some of the possibilities of VR, I decided I want to build my own VR content. So I became a pirate for a day and downloaded all sorts of cracked 3D apps that otherwise cost a lot of money, like 3DSmax, Maya, Cinema4D and such. Having messed around a bit with all of these apps, I was still not able to pick out one specific app that felt good to me and that I wanted to explore further. Untill I discovered Blender...

It was during the same summer when I visited a retro-computer museum in Helmond, and I was told that a specific Silicon Graphics machine that fascinated me was actually previously owned and used by the founder of Blender. I'd heard of Blender before, and many years prior I even installed it on my computer, but I didn't get around to actually use it. So when I came home from the museum, I decided to download Blender and check it out. This was a very good idea looking back on it now. Cause somehow I found in Blender something that I was unable to find it in the previously mentioned apps, but I can't really find the words to properly explain it, so by lack of better words let's just say that Blender "clicked" with me.

I jumped right in, as green as grass, and knew absolutely nothing on how to work with Blender. But luckily I did have a little bit of knowledge still floating around in the back of my head from when I was a teenager and worked with 3DStudio. This earlier experience has made me be somewhat familiar already with the very basics and certain terminology used in 3D like vertexes, polygons, textures etc etc. So I embarked on my quest to learn a bit more about Blender and wanted to start building something. I thought to myself that it would be wise to keep it really simple at first, so I chose to build a simple cube. But I was already staring at a cube on my screen so that was the end of that idea *². So I decided to start with something complicated, like building my IRL house in 3D. Many hours went in to accomplishing this idea. But through a lot of trial and error I did finally get there.

I can safely say that I've come a long way since that the summer of 2021. I am very aware that I still have many, many things to learn, but still, the amount of things that I've learned in the last two to three months is really amazing! I've learned something new every day, and I mean literally every single day! I plan to keep doing so, because it's fun to see how I'm improving over time. Sometimes it feels that the more I learn and know, the more I realize that there's still soo much more to learn. Nevertheless, I believe that I'm doing reasonably good at struggling through this long and steep learning curve.

From past experiences in my life I know that once I would've mastered the thing that I was really focused on, that it would only be a matter of time before I would eventually loose interest in it, and soon find a new thing to focus on. So the fact that there will always be more things to learn when it comes to Blender really motivates me, and keeps me interested in it. I enjoy that. All of this started to make me think about certain things in my life, and I came up with some ideas that may impact my future in a positive way.
Now that I have found this thing that I really enjoy, and knowing that I will eventually become at least averagely good at it, why not use it to fill a gap that has grown in my professional career? Not only does that sound as a great idea, it's also very common for people during their mid-life phase to do a drastic career switch, so I feel that I don't even have a choice in the matter. It's time for a change!

So I came to the conclusion: I will spend, or invest rather, all my time in to learning 3D and Blender. Not only through trial & error and relying on YouTube content, but also I would really want to do some course or education in the not so distant future. The only thing holding me back right now is that I'm unfortunately in a very weak financial position at the moment and lack the funds to pay for such an education myself. I'm working on changing this though. Once the moment has arrived that I'll feel more confident with my own skills, I want to find a job or internship or whatever that will allow me to improve my skills, and gain xp. If I can eventually earn a decent living with it, then I will have accomplished a major goal that I have set for myself.

Now I don't know if I will ever reach that point, but I'll do my best to make it all happen. So wish me luck on that everybody! If you're still reading this, then help me out simply by visualizing me becoming a professional 3D artist in the future. Thanks!

To wrap up this up story I want to thank you for visiting my website. Don't feel hesitant to leave a comment for me. Cya around!

*¹ - In case you want to see what 3DStudio was like, simply follow the simple instructions I provide in this tutorial video I made.
*² - People familiar with Blender will understand, but to the rest: Blender by default shows a simple cube when you run it. This cube has become something of a meme over the years.