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Kernon Dillon: A Blender Community Treasure

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My friend Kernon, not just another Blenderhead

I would like to introduce you to a friend of mine, a rather modest man who has quietly undertaken the task of educating the blender community.

Realizing that there are a great many questions asked by Blender users and not content to merely sit on the sidelines and watch as others created educational resources, Kernon rolled up his sleeves and started creating one tutorial after another. The result of which adds up to a pretty big contribution to the blender knowledge base and the further education of a great many Blenderheads.

Since Kernon doesn't brag or make a fuss over his accomplishments, it would be easy to dismiss him as just another Blenderhead.

And if I hadn't already decided Kernon deserved his own fan page honoring his dedication to providing quality learning resources for the Blender community and gone looking for more information, I might have never known about some of the great things he has done for our community.

Since Kernon isn't likely to go looking for the recognition he deserves, I decided to do it for him. By the end of this lens you will see why I think Kernon is definitely a "Blender Community Treasure".

Kernon has been BUSY!

In addition to being an active member of the Blender community, Kernon has been contributed to/participated in a number of successful projects.

BlenderNewbies video tutorials in 3D Artist magazine

Blender is getting some recognition in the print magazine, 3D Artist! And so is our favorite Blender video tutorial guru, Kernon.

The latest issue of 3d Artist (#7) features 4 BlenderNewbies video tutorials on the cover disc (about 30 minutes worth of BlenderNewbie greatness)

Blenderart Magazine

....taking on a tedious but needed and much appreciated role

About four years ago, my friend Gaurav Nawani and I decided to launch a community magazine. After two issues we realized we needed help. Far too many mistakes were making it to the final draft.

Luckily Kernon volunteered to help us out. He took on the incredibly un-fun task of helping us proof the magazine. With his help, we polished up Blenderart Magazine and turned it into an anticipated bi-monthly community resource.

At this time, Kernon is no longer a proofer for Blenderart Magazine, he resigned so he could focus on creating video tutorials. We miss him, but wish him all the best in his current and future projects.

A Featured Instructor at CG Cookie

Cg Cookie is an online education resource for cg artists working with various popular applications. Our educational materials are presented either in a written text format, or streaming video.

Kernon has authored over 14½ hours of well-received Blender video tutorials along with the creation of many learning tools such as Blender Keystroke Translators for Maya and Lightwave users, and an interactive Blender Knowledge Test. His dedication to the sharing of the joys of using Blender is an on-going endeavor with no end in sight.

Below are some of his most recent videos featured on CG Cookie.
Enhanced Reflections with HDR Images
In this Blender tutorial, we'll take a look at how to enhance your reflections by using High Dynamic Range Images.
Create a reusable composite node library
In this tutorial we'll take a look at how you can create a library of reusable composite nodes. It takes time to create node setups, and often the work is repetitive, so let's see what can be done to be more efficient.
Creating a Magic Wand Particles Effect
This video tutorial series will show you how to create a magic wand particles effect, the sort of visual effect you might see when a "magic wand" is waved. This will be similar to a "pixie" dust effect, although not so complicated. In Part 1 of 3, we'll take a look at how to create the sprite graphics that will be used in the particle system.

Create a Lighted Christmas Tree

.... a great tutorial series from the BlenderNewbies website

A 6 part tutorial demonstrating the different aspects of making a lighted Christmas tree (including gift boxes). The commentary in these tutorials is minimized because my goal is to present something that will, hopefully, spark ideas of your own.

NOTE: This tutorial is no longer fully-compatible with the latest versions of Blender. If you wish to follow along with the tutorial, you'll need to use Blender 2.45 or earlier. You can find earlier versions of Blender, here. A new version of this tutorial series will be created to maintain full compatibility.

BlenderNewbies

....a resource for learning Blender 3d

Being an active member of the Blender community, Kernon saw the same questions surface time and again, most often from new users. After giving it some thought, Kernon came up with a solution that proved to be extremely popular, not only with new users, but users with varying degrees of experience as well.

He created a website, named aptly enough, BlenderNewbies. Visitors to BlenderNewbies can search through and watch an ever growing number of posts and video tutorials covering blender questions, tips, tricks and techniques.

As the popularity of BlenderNewbies grew, Kernon added a BlenderNewbies User Forum. The forum provides users a place to ask questions about posted articles and video tutorials as well as ask / suggest ideas for new tutorials.

many of the tutorials Kernon has created for Blender Newbie have been featured on BlenderNation, the blender community news site.

Oven Baked Pretzels

.... another of Kernon's great tutorial series from his website BlenderNewbies

This video tutorial series will take a look at how you can create 3D pretzels in Blender. We'll start from a collection of reference images and go, step-by-step, all the way through to the final render.

Blender Foundation Certified Trainer

...joining the ranks of certified trainers

As time passed, Kernon's website, BlenderNewbies proved to not only be a valuable educational resource, but proved that Kernon was a talented and effective instructor.

When Kernon realized that his site was successfully helping to educate new users, he applied to the Blender Foundation to be considered as a Certified Blender Trainer. After a panel of ten members from the BF-education group reviewed the content of his site, he was granted the title of Certified Trainer.

for more information on the Blender Foundation Certified Trainers

Elephants Dream

Kernon is featured in the Textile and Photography credits of Elephants Dream.

Elephants Dream is the world's first open movie, made entirely with open source graphics software such as Blender, and with all production files freely available to use however you please, under a Creative Commons license.

The short film was created by the Orange Open Movie Project studio in Amsterdam during 2005/2006, bringing together a diverse team of artists and developers from all over the world.

Check out Kernon's snowflake tutorial

This one is about creating a layered snowflake pattern. The 41-minute video tutorial covers:

* Creating the snowflake pattern using simple poly-modeling techniques along with Blender's Mirror modifier and Spin tool
* Arranging the snowflakes using the Scatter and Drop script along with some manual tweaking
* Setting up render layers for compositing
* Using Blender's nodes to composite the render layers with added FX
* Adding colorful stars to the composited layers
* Adding a background image to the snowflake pattern

BlenderNation

... fresh Blender News, Every Day

In addition to running a successful educational site, Kernon moon-lights as an editor of Blender Nation, the official News and Events site for the Blender community.

As an editor he has written over 80 reports and articles.

Polygonal Modeling Fundamentals (Primer - Selecting and Navigating Objects)

... back to the basics

Kernon has announced that soon he will be doing a lot more modeling tutorials. So to make sure you have a good grasp of the basics, he has posted a Modeling Fundmentals video tutorial

This video covers:

* Simple Object Selection
* Naming an Object
* The Active Object
* Multi-Selections
* Selecting All or None
* Box-Selection
* Lasso-Selection
* Zoom within Border
* Zoom Selected
* View All
* Local View
* The Outliner
* Layers

Blender Browser Toolbar

Run a search for Blender Related information and guaranteed you will see more than a few kitchen appliance links.

In an effort to make finding Blender 3d specific resources easier, Kernon created a Blender Browser Toolbar.

In addition to being able to run Blender 3d specific searches, Kernon has included links to some of the Blender communities' best resources.

I personally use the toolbar on a daily basis while researching for articles and while looking for answers to my own questions.


Be sure to download Blender Browser Toolbar

BlenderNewbies Video Tutorial Compilation DVD-ROM

... just where does Kernon find the time?

You would think, after learning how busy Kernon is, that he has no free time what so ever. Not true, somewhere he managed to find the time to create and produce a DVD-ROM filled with over 14 hours of the best of his online tutorials. All nicely gathered together into a portable DVD format for viewing when not connected to the internet.

In addition to the BlenderNewbies tutorials, you'll get several important bonuses that will enhance your studies of Blender.


    Several unreleased timelapse and demo videos included.
    * Modeling and Texturing a Cartoon Octopus
    * Modeling a Camera Lens
    * Modeling a DVD Case
    * and more!
    * More Blend files

    Color printout of the BlenderQuickStart PDF (conveniently-sized and printed on glossy water-resistant paper)

    Offline snapshot of the Blender Wiki OVER 800MB (Blender User's Documentation sections) access the wiki whenever and wherever with no need for an Internet connection. This offline snapshot maintains the same look and feel of the online version.

    Full-color Blender-themed bookmarks to keep your place in your favorite Blender books.

    The interactive "Beginner's Knowledge Test" (in English and Japanese) Special thanks to NightCalm for the Japanese translation.


You can support Kernon and his ongoing projects by purchasing a copy of BlenderNewbies Video Tutorial Compilation DVD-ROM for yourself or a fellow blenderhead.

You can show your love and appreciation for Kernon here.

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dreamsgate

I am the Managing Editor of Blenderart Magazine and a long time user of Blender.
all about me

When I am not busy with Blender related activities,I... more »

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