Kidnapped Mermaid - Complete Blender Sculpting Course

Kidnapped Mermaid: Complete Blender Sculpting Course (77 Real-Time Lessons)

🔥 I'm Marat, a 3D character artist, YouTuber and streamer. In this course I show you how to sculpt a complex scene with two stylized antagonist characters: a beautiful, vulnerable mermaid and the villain shark.

This course was inspired by the incredible artwork of 2D concept artist Alex Shatohin.

You will see the full process with absolutely no skips. I start from an empty Blender canvas and go all the way to the final presentation, renders and even a bit of compositing. Every step is narrated and recorded in real time. No timelapses!

This time I kept the lessons short on purpose: 77 lessons, around 20 minutes each. You can watch one in a coffee break, and you always know where to pick it up tomorrow.

All in Blender, free open-source software. No extra tools to buy: the two add-ons I use are free as well and included in the course materials.

🎨 What You'll Learn
• Create a complex 3D sculpted scene from 2D concept art
• Sculpt a stylized female character from scratch: head, torso, hands, hair, fin and accessories
• Sculpt a male creature: a shark monster with gums, teeth, claws, scars and heavy anatomy
• Female and male anatomy side by side in one project, so you actually feel the difference instead of reading about it
• Pose two characters together so they read as one story, not two models in a row
• Vertex painting: color both characters without touching a single UV
• Add a decorative tattoo to the mermaid's shoulder
• Lighting, materials, render setup and final compositing, all inside Blender

📋 What's Inside
77 lessons, in the order I actually work. Nothing is rearranged for the camera:

1. References and blockout: head, torso, lower body, shoulders, arms

2. Hands: analyzing hand anatomy, then sculpting feminine hands and fingernails

3. The head: sculpting in three passes, opening the mouth, eyebrows, lashes, teeth and tongue

4. The shark: blockout, hands, legs, posing, chain and bracelet

5. Bringing them together: placing the mermaid in the shark's mouth and working the pose

6. Hair: blocking out, the free Bevel Curve add-on, strands, rags and refining the base

7. Detailing: shark's mouth, body, head, tail and claws; mermaid's fin and tail; scars everywhere

8. Painting: vertex painting both characters, color variation, the tattoo on the mermaid's shoulder, decorating the bra

9. Presentation: render scene, materials, background elements, lighting, compositing and turntable animation

Plus a bonus set of lessons on setting up Blender for sculpting.
And one lesson I care about more than most of the others: how I cut render time significantly without losing quality. That one will pay for itself on every project you make after this.

🧠 Why This Course Works
I don't just show you what to do. I show you how, and explain why at every step.
✔ You see the parts that go wrong too: the mistakes and the fixes stay in
✔ Two characters in one scene, so you learn male and female anatomy in the same project
✔ Short lessons, one idea per video: easy to follow, easy to come back to
✔ You're not copying a result, you're watching the decisions that lead to it
✔ You finish with a complete, rendered, portfolio-ready scene, not a grey sculpt on a grey background
✔ If you use ZBrush or Nomad, the sculpting logic transfers. Only the buttons are different

📦 What's Included
• 77 fully narrated real-time video lessons, 24 hours 50 minutes in total
• Final .blend file of the scene with both characters and the render setup
• Reference PureRef file used throughout the course
• The tattoo image used on the mermaid
• Two free Blender add-ons used in the course: Bevel Curve Tools and BlenderKit
• Lifetime access, learn at your own pace

💡 Skill Level: Intermediate. Beginners can follow too, but it is much easier if you already know some human anatomy, Blender navigation and the sculpting UI.
🖌 Software: Blender 4.5.2, free
🎧 Audio: English voice-over
📁 Format: video lessons you watch on Patreon, in the browser or the Patreon app. Project files are downloadable.

👉 One scene, two characters, every single step on camera. Let's build it together 💪

A bit more about me: my YouTube channel has over 250 videos about sculpting in Blender and 11,000+ subscribers, and I have teaching experience at one of the leading international computer graphics and animation schools.