Okay 4 days later and I made it through the second book.  Auryn is very thorough which is a good thing, tho hard for me to wrap my head around going over so much, so I have been breaking it down so it is easier for me to push through it.

Part of me really wants to just jump ahead to the actual modeling parts and not even bother with the intro books, but I know Auryn well enough to know if there is some tiny little piece of information I have missed she will have it in these books, and who knows that info might just be the key for some of my problems. :)

Going to start on book 3 tonight.


I have to add this little piece of info, if you spend time doing custom color theme make sure you do the add theme to preset.  I wasn't sure if it would save through a restore to factory settings or not but I risked it and I was able to go back and select it from the presets to keep my color theme

Okay I am making this blog for myself and for my mentors.  As we are all online at different times I figure this will allow me to make notes of the problems I am having so they will have a better understanding of why I can't seem to get this.

For anyone else who might happen across this, a bit of background.  I use to build and sculpt in a 3d program called Second Life.  I was doing rather well at it, then my eyes started going.  I had a form of cataract they call young peoples cataracts.  They are fast growing and instead of growing on the front of the lens they grow on the backside of it.  Within about 3 months I was almost blind and waiting on cataract surgery.

Jan of 2012 I had surgery on both eyes, recovery for the most part was rather fast, but as anyone who has ever had eye surgery knows it changes everything.  Right down to the fact I had spent 40 years nearsighted and suddenly I wasn't anymore.  Doesn't seem like a big issue til you are trying to adjust to a major difference after a lifetime of it being one way.  

Now as anyone who has spent time in an ever changing chat program such as Second Life can tell you, that few months I was out of the loop on my craft hurt, I came back and everything was different.  Yes, I had known the changes where happening, they had started before my eyes started going, but when you can't see to work in the programs you fall behind, which is exactly what I did.

I got back in world with my eyes fixed, and I felt so over whelmed that I didn't even want to mess with it, I felt as tho I would never get caught up.  So as a result I fell even farther behind.

It is almost 2 years from when my eyes went, well over a year since they been fixed, I have just about given up on ever sculpting or building in SL again, but my friends and mentors haven't given up on me like I have.

One of them gave me a bunch of the SL books she has written for beginners to try to help me get up to speed.  While I do not expect them to help, I gave her my word I would try, so I will.  This blog is part of that.  Maybe putting issues and struggles down in here will help me to express them and for my mentors to understand my problems so we can figure out whatever work around I need.

Last night I started out with book one of hers, great info for a beginner, but I had to force myself to read it through as it covered info I already know, but hey a review never hurt.  I then started book 2 and as it deals with the layout and stuff I actually opened Blender up for the first time in months, and spent about 3 hours between last night and this morning customizing everything so I can see what I am doing.  Grey on Grey doesn't work for me.

So I guess this is a start at least. I hope to make it through the 2nd book today.