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Renderosity has an article about Building a Blender Bookshelf in which they talk about what books an artist would need to make the most of Blender. Jason van Gumster’s Blender for Dummies and Tony Mullen’s Mastering Blender are two of the books, while Animating with Blender, my own work, is the third.

The article makes good points about all three of the books, but I’m particularly proud of the section about Animating with Blender. First, they refer to the production values, down to typography and layout as “superb.” That may not seem like a big deal at first, but spend a number of days with your nose in a book and those little touches can make the difference between an effortless entry of informational into your mind and a fatigue inducing struggle.

Best quote:

What makes this really well-organized book so good is not only the organization of the information presented, but the down-to-earth writing style of Mr. Hess [Dude -- Mr. Hess is my father! -ed.]. Reading the book and going through each section you feel like the author is right next to you helping with mistakes and pointing out ways to save time.

And what the reviewer [Mr. Ricky Grove] does not tell you is that, in fact, I am right next to you. I am sneaky. I already went through your kitchen cupboards looking for pop tarts. By the time you turned around, I was gone. Out and down to the street, with your breakfast pastries in my greedy little mitts, and all because you bought my book. How awesome is that?

I just wanted to remind folks that until Blender 2.6 (the real gold release in the middle of next year) hits the stands, the Blender 2.4x series is still the stable production version to use. If you’re ready to move past making still scenes and just doing new feature test renders and haven’t already picked up Animating with Blender, you should think about it. If you’re interested, click through the ad on the side of the page and read the Amazon reviews. It’s worth it.

Thanks for your time!