There isn't a single answer to how long it takes to learn Blender because the timeline depends entirely on what you want to achieve. A beginner aiming to create a simple 3D model will reach their goal much faster than someone preparing a professional portfolio for the games industry.
At CADA, I've guided hundreds of students through their Blender journey, and I've noticed that the question, “How long will this take?” actually needs to be reframed. The real question is actually what does “Learned” mean to you? Someone might consider that they learned Blender after becoming familiar with the interface and producing their first 3D model. For another student, “Learned” means having render-ready architectural visualisations in their portfolio.
From my teaching experience, three factors consistently determine learning speed: goal clarity (knowing exactly what you want to create), practice quality (focused work on relevant skills), and consistency (regular practice sessions, not sporadic bursts of motivation). Notice that motivation isn't on this list. Motivation fades. Systems and habits deliver results.
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As I mentioned at the beginning, your goal decides what you need to learn and what you can safely ignore for now. A beginner who wants a clean, still render can progress without touching rigging. A beginner who wants a short character animation cannot.
The specificity of your goal matters more than its ambition. “I want to learn Blender” is too vague to build a learning plan around. “I want to model and render three product shots for my portfolio” gives you a clear target and lets you ignore everything else in Blender that doesn't serve that goal.
Prior experience in related fields speeds up your progress significantly. People with backgrounds in video editing, photography, or graphic design already understand the concepts of composition, lighting, and colour. They can focus on learning Blender's technical tools rather than visual fundamentals. Someone who's done traditional drawing or painting grasps form and perspective quickly, while programmers adapt faster to Blender's node-based systems. And ofcourse your progress will pick up more quickly, if you learned any other 3D tool before, like Maya, Cinema 4D, or any other CAD program.
This does not mean you need experience in all of the above to learn Blender. It just explains why some people reach the same outcome with fewer hours.
Your weekly practice time determines the pace of your progress, but consistency matters more than volume. You will get better results if you spread five hours of work over five days than if you cram five exhausting hours into a single weekend session. The brain needs time to consolidate skills, which is why daily 30 to 60 minute sessions often outperform weekly marathon sessions.
However, keep in mind that not all practice hours are equal. It's better to do two hours of focused exercise in the morning when you're feeling alert, than to do two hours of tired exercise in the evening after a busy day at work. I tell my students to protect their best mental hours for Blender practice, even if that means shorter sessions. Quality of attention matters more than clock time.
If you asked me how many hours you should spend on learning Blender, then I would split it into 3 main groups:
A structured sequence that builds skills progressively will get you to competence faster than jumping between random tutorials. When students follow disconnected tutorials, they collect fragments of knowledge without understanding how pieces connect. They can model a donut one day and a sword the next, but can't independently plan and execute their own project.
The best learning experiences combine teaching with regular feedback. You learn a technique, try it out on a small project, work out what you don't understand, and get that specific confusion sorted before moving on. It's not something you usually get from random tutorials. They show you how to recreate someone else's project, but they don't teach you to make decisions on your own.
At this level, you can navigate Blender's interface without constantly searching for buttons, understand basic modelling tools, and complete simple projects by following tutorials. You're no longer intimidated by the software. It shouldn’t be a challenge to model basic objects (furniture, simple props, low-poly scenes), apply materials and basic textures, set up simple lighting, render a still image.
A realistic timeline to achieve this level is with 5-10 hours per week of focused practice, most students reach this level in 4-8 weeks. Daily practice sessions, even short ones, speed this up to 3-4 weeks. Sporadic practice (a few hours one week, nothing the next) extends the timeline to 3-4 months because you spend time re-learning what you've forgotten.
The biggest obstacle at this stage is switching between too many different tutorials without finishing anything. Students watch ten different modelling tutorials but never complete a single scene from start to finish. They collect techniques without building the ability to combine them independently.
Finishing 3-5 complete scenes matters more than watching 50 tutorials. A complete scene means you've modelled it, textured it, lit it, and rendered a final image you're willing to show someone. This proves you can execute a full workflow, not just follow isolated steps.
You can plan and execute your own projects without tutorials for every step. When you encounter a problem, you know which Blender feature to explore or what to search for. You understand workflows, not just individual tools. Intermediate users know how to create original scenes from reference images, use modifiers effectively (array, mirror, bevel), build procedural materials with shader nodes. There is also a clear understanding of the topology and edge flow.
It takes typically 6-12 months with 10-15 hours of weekly practice to move from familiar to intermediate level. Students who work on focused, progressively challenging projects move faster than those who repeat similar difficulty levels.
Tutorial dependency is the biggest challenge to achieving this level. Students reach a point where they can follow any tutorial perfectly, but freeze when starting a blank project. They haven't practised making creative decisions independently. The solution is forcing yourself to complete 2-3 projects where you only use tutorials for specific technical problems, not step-by-step guidance.
Learning never stops at this level. Blender releases significant updates every year, new techniques emerge constantly, and AI tools are changing workflows rapidly. “Advanced” doesn't mean you've learned everything. It means you've developed strong fundamentals in a specific direction and can adapt as the landscape evolves.
At this level, you should also have a good portfolio in your chosen focus area (character modelling, hard surface design, architectural visualisation, motion graphics, etc.).
Usually, complete beginners reach this level after 12-24 months of consistent practice (15-20 hours weekly). This assumes you're working on increasingly complex projects, getting feedback from experienced artists, and deliberately practising weak areas rather than only working on what you already do well.
Timeline comparison
|
Level |
Timeline (10hrs/week) |
Key capabilities |
Main obstacle |
|
Familiar |
4-8 weeks |
Navigate interface, model simple objects, apply materials, render still images |
Tutorial hopping without finishing projects |
|
Intermediate |
6-12 months |
Plan own projects, use modifiers, shader nodes, troubleshoot independently |
Tutorial dependency, can't start blank projects |
|
Advanced |
12-24 months |
Portfolio-ready work in specialised area, reverse-engineer professional techniques |
Trying to master everything instead of specialising |
Learning Blender isn't easy, but specific strategies make the process more effective and less frustrating. Below, I’ll share some of my tips that I’ve developed based on teaching students 3D for several years. Also I’ll add some insights that I support from Will Gibbons' “100-day Blender challenge”, where he documented his learning journey with prior 3D experience in Fusion360 and KeyShot.
Build skills in a logical order where each lesson prepares you for the next. Start with interface navigation and basic modelling before attempting complex materials or rigging. Random topic-jumping creates knowledge gaps that slow you down later.
If you want a broad, beginner-friendly path, I recommend starting with a structured course like 3D Portfolio Essentials. It helps you understand what a strong beginner portfolio looks like and what skills you need to build one.
Avoid “tutorial jail” by completing full projects, not just following demonstrations. Tutorial jail happens when you can recreate any tutorial step-by-step, but can't build anything independently. After learning a technique, apply it to your own small project. Finish it completely, even if it's imperfect. Then make another better version. This iteration builds real skill.
Will Gibbons identified this as critical in his 100-day challenge and I completely agree with him. Structured courses teach you how concepts connect, whilst random tutorials give you disconnected skills. Quality instruction matters too. The skills of your instructor directly affect how quickly you understand concepts and avoid developing bad habits that need correcting later.
Daily practice, even 20-30 minutes, produces better long-term results than occasional marathon sessions. Your brain consolidates learning during sleep, so daily exposure gives you more consolidation cycles. Besides, by having frequent sessions, you are building your muscle memory, which dramatically improves your familiarity with the interface and tools.
External accountability keeps you consistent when motivation wanes. This could be a study partner, posting work-in-progress updates to a community, or joining a structured course with deadlines. Gibbons found that learning in public, where others see your progress, provides encouragement on difficult days and makes quitting harder.
If a project needs something you've never done before, take time to show it works before committing to the whole project. If you want to create a complex material effect you've never tried before, start with a simple test version. Make sure the technique works, then use it in your actual project. This stops you from wasting hours on a project, only to find out that the key technique doesn't work as expected.
By now, you should have a realistic way to estimate your own timeline. Pick one clear goal, decide how many hours you can practise each week, and focus on finishing small projects. That approach gives you progress you can measure, even if your pace is not fast.
If you have never opened Blender before, the easiest next step is to try it in a guided setting before you commit to months of self-study. That is why we run the CADA Academy 3D Bootcamp. It is a simple way to test whether you enjoy 3D work, learn the basics with a tutor, and build a weekly routine without paying upfront.