Beginner 3D Game Artist, Where to start

Aquas

Just a little about me, im a novice 3d artist who has played around on/off in CG for a year now, but I am looking to get serious and try improve my modeling ability. IM very comfortable with 3DS max and can create basic models, but anything with any kind of complex shape or curvature is a lost cause for me. I am looking to get into HARD SURFACE modeling.

Im a poor 2D artist (aka my drawing skills are WAY below average), in case thats important information.

So my question is, what is a good online resource where a novice 3D artist can get a good foundation in 3D? Im not looking for something where I will be just following a tutorial and learning nothing about how to apply this knowledge to things I want to create.

And what should I personally do if I want to improve my work?

Shapes I have tried to recreate but failed, for the life of me I cant figure out HOW to create these shapes :

Brian "Panda" Choi

3Dmotive.com proveds a focused tutorial series on creating game art assets with good theory behind it. It's hand holding tutorials, which is also good. All for a modest price.

Block out the big shapes, intersect as necessary. Just make sure you get the volume IN, don't worry about perfecting the mesh. You can retopologize later.

http://s437.photobucket.com/user/Overmind5000/media/LavaLobster_001_zpsa63f9471.jpg.html

Draw as much as you can. Draw studying things like figure drawing, mechanical tools and servos, etc.

Madwish

Drawing is always a good skill, you can't go wrong with it. You don't have to master it, but it will always help you in your work. There's plenty of ressources online to improve your drawing skills, but practice is of course the core of it. I also recommend Feng Zhu youtube video. He's got a large amount of it and this guy is awesome. You don't need to be a concept artist, but having the ability to put ideas on paper will really help you.

For hard surface modeling, the ships you referenced are no easy task, especially if you're not used to it. I would highly recommend you to go to the weekly hard surface modeling challenge here on Polycount. One model each week (in theory), always very different than the last. You can post your progress and ask for help if needed. The best way to learn is to practice again, and those challenges are small enough that you can make them in one week and learn a ton from it. Plus there's quite a few of them now.

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=132146

As for tutorials, there's a wide range of them. Here are my two cents:

- 3D Motive: Really great, quite cheap. Lots of different content. There's quite a lot of hard surface modeling in various 3d package (except Modo/Blender unfortunately).
- Digital Tutors: Not a fan of their tutorials, often not very advanced and lacking in my opinion. But it might be good for starters. It also comes with Pluralsight, which is really cool if you're interested in coding.
- Cookie (blender cookie, max cookie, ...): The one I never tried, but it looks quite awesome. Unfortunately it also seems quite different from subsite to subsite. Blender cookie looks incredible, Modo cookie on the other hand looks completely dead...
- Eat3D: That was my go to place, but it hasn't receive new stuff for a while. Some tutorials might interest you though. The Dozer and the fountain series are both in 3DsMax.

Hope this helps. :thumbup: