Learn Low Poly Modeling in Blender 2.9 / 2.8

Wrong tutorials. A lot of these models consist of just taking a primitive like a sphere, scaling it, and then creating another primitive, scaling it, moving it, so you have overlapping hulls ("bad" topology). Then in shading you just create a default material and set its color. There are models in the examples that require e.g. extrusion (which is literally: select faces, press E, drag mouse). Some shapes are smoothed/subdivided with Catmul-Clark Subdivision Surface modifier, which you can add simply by pressing CTRL+2 in "Object Mode" (the digit is the number of subdivisions, basically use 1 to 3, you may set more for renders). Here's a good, albeit old tutorial: ▶ this video Yes I made some assumptions when estimating it takes about a day to learn to make models like this: you have a free day to spend it in its entirety to learn, and as a hackernews user your IQ is over average and you're technically savvy. And last assumption: you learn skills required evenly, rather than going deep into the rabbit hole of e.g. correct topology; if you go through something like Andrew Pierce's doughnut tutorial, it may take more than a day, especially if you play around with the various functions of Blender rather than strictly following the videos - but you will end up making significantly better models than the examples presented, e.g. you will know to inset cylinder's ngons to avoid the Catmul-Clark subdiv artifacts you can see on the 2nd column of hats. > this tech is insanely useful. No, it isn't, but you don't see it, because you don't have enough experience to see it (Dunning-Kruger effect) - this is why I mentioned my experience, not to flex but to point out I have the experience required to estimate the value of this tool.