I thought learning rigging would be easier than this

Deciding to dive into 3D modeling on a whim

I honestly don’t know why I thought picking up 3D modeling as a hobby would be a relaxing weekend activity. Maybe it was seeing those polished character models in games like Arknights: Endfield where the lighting feels so deliberate, or just getting bored of staring at flat graphic designs all day. I ended up looking into some 3D CLO programs because I liked the idea of digital fashion simulation, but the jump from 2D concepts to actual 3D space is just brutal. It feels like every time I think I have a handle on the basic interface, I hit a wall with some obscure technical requirement that I didn’t even know existed. I spent about 450,000 won on a specialized online course bundle, thinking it would be structured enough to keep me on track, but half the time I’m just watching the screen in confusion while the instructor breezes through steps that take me three hours to replicate.

The endless frustration of rigging

Rigging is easily the part that makes me want to close my laptop and walk away for a week. You spend all this time creating a character, maybe getting the textures to look decent, and then you start setting up the bones. It sounds straightforward—you know, just connecting the limbs so they move—but in reality, the weight painting is a nightmare. I remember spending four hours straight just trying to get an elbow to bend without the mesh folding in on itself like a cheap accordion. It doesn’t help that most of the tutorials online assume you have a deep background in technical animation. When I look at the professional stuff, like how they handle dynamic lighting or specific rendering techniques, I feel like I’m playing with LEGO bricks while they’re building a skyscraper. There’s no quick fix, and sometimes I wonder if I should have just stuck to learning the Colorist Industrial Engineer license stuff instead, at least that felt grounded in a clearer set of rules.

Trying to find my footing with software

I’ve tried switching between a few different programs to see if one was more intuitive. I downloaded a trial for a software that allegedly handles real-time rendering better, but the UI was so cluttered that I spent most of my time just looking for the ‘undo’ button. It’s funny how my experience with things like typography or layout in 2D doesn’t really translate to this three-dimensional world. Even something as simple as adjusting the UI themes or dashboard graphics, which I read about in a car review recently, makes me realize how much effort goes into making things feel ‘intuitive.’ My own workspace looks like a disaster of floating windows and nested menus. I keep telling myself that if I just power through, it’ll eventually click, but I’m still at the point where I have to search for basic hotkeys every five minutes. It’s not even about becoming a professional; I just want to make something that doesn’t look like a glitchy prototype.

The reality of specialized education

I looked at some of those programs that offer employment-linked education, mostly because the curriculum lists topics like ‘Visual Design Practice’ and ‘Computer Graphics’ with such confidence. Seeing students get ‘A’ grades in these subjects makes me wonder if I’m just missing the aptitude for it. I saw a post about a school program where students were essentially treated like industry interns, and the pressure there must be immense. Meanwhile, I’m over here trying to figure out why my character’s eyes are suddenly clipping through their forehead during a simple walk cycle. It’s a very different kind of challenge compared to, say, selling an old polo shirt on a secondhand app like Danggeun, where the value is obvious and the transaction is straightforward. Here, the value is tied to how many hours of mental exhaustion I’m willing to sink into a single model.

Moving forward with no clear plan

So here I am, halfway through this course and still unsure if I’m actually learning anything useful or just memorizing button sequences. Sometimes I look at job sites just to see what they expect from a junior designer, and it’s always a laundry list of software I haven’t even installed yet. It’s overwhelming. Maybe I’ll take a break from the rigging and just focus on making a single, static object look decent for a few days. The technical ambiguity is what kills me—I can’t tell if a problem is my design choice or a limitation of my current skill level. It’s probably both. I still haven’t finished the final project for my first module, and honestly, I don’t feel like I’m anywhere near ready to try. I might just close the tab for a few days and see if I feel like opening it again later, or maybe I’ll just go back to sketching on paper for a while until the frustration fades.