Meet 3D designer Robin Ruud

In honor of launching Blender Essentials taught by 3D designer Robin Ruud, I caught up with Robin to learn more about his background and to share a sneak peak of our newest class that goes live in just a few weeks! Pre-register for the course here and be among the first to hear when it launches.

When you become a BYOL member, you gain access to this new Blender course as well as my 30+ additional courses on Photoshop, Lightroom,InDesign,Figma, and more. As a BYOL member you will also enjoy personalized support, earn certificates, and tackle exciting community challenges. Head here to sign-up!

Tell us a bit about yourself!
I’ve always been drawn to visual media, but I had a hard time finding my thing. I tried photography (I was okay at that), web design (was fine), product design (bad), editorial (bored), cinematography (good), fiction writing (very, very bad,) and ended up in 3D design. If you can do it indoors, I tried it. (That’s key, living in the icy lands of Norway.)

When I’m with creatives, I’m the techiest one in the room. Around tech people, I’m the artsiest. For years, that felt like being an outsider in both camps. 3D is the first thing that pulled those two halves together.

Outside work, I inhale books and podcasts on science and philosophy. And occasionally, that influence seeps into my work.

Can you tell us about your own journey with Blender? How did you first discover it, and how has it transformed your creative work?

College threw me into 3D completely by accident. We had elective subjects: 3D, film, and VFX. I was dead set on taking VFX (Green screen, explosions, and so on.) But the course lied. They weren’t electives; they were all mandatory. 3D was forced on me.

We learned a different 3D software called Cinema 4D, and I loved it. The possibilities seemed endless. If you can think it, you can make it. That’s what blew my mind about 3D.
Later, I worked in 3D Studio Max because that’s what the job used. I was perfectly happy with 3DS Max, until I started freelancing and realized buying a license costs roughly one kidney. 

Enter: Blender. Free forever.

Blender felt like the first truly modern tool I’d touched. Intuitive, clever, fast. After a month, I was working twice as fast as I ever had in 3DS Max. And Blender didn’t just level up my 3D work—it made my 2D better too. Now, I even use it for stuff that normally lives in After Effects. If you work on a flat plane, Blender becomes the world’s most overpowered 2D animation tool.

For complete beginners who might be intimidated by 3D software, what would you say are the most exciting possibilities Blender opens up that they might not expect?
Oh, I totally get it. When you first start out, it feels like you’re stopping to google a new word every five minutes. Not fun. And I think a lot of people bounce right there.

But trust me, that first steep hill isn’t that high. And once you’re past it, it’s shockingly easy to make cool stuff. Because the computer does a lot of work for you. It works out perspective, blur, shadows, reflections… You get a lot for free.

It sounds banal, but even basic things like 3D text just look so good. 3D text in Photoshop is hard to make it much better than Word Art. Same for product mockups. If you know 3D, it’s trivial. If you don’t, basically impossible. Blender flips that switch.

Your YouTube channel "Robin Squares" showcases your unique aesthetic and approach to digital art. How does this personal style influence how you teach Blender?
Among artists, I’m the nerd. I honestly get excited about grid systems, typography, and HTML. I’m not the guy sketching perfect freehand portraits. Never been. And while Blender can be super freeform, that’s not how I teach it.

My approach is methodical. Build piece by piece. Tweak. Adjust. Change my mind later (I could never be a tattoo artist). And I think people appreciate that because it makes the process easy to follow. You don’t need drawing skills or hand-eye coordination; just some patience.
When I say that, people often think it kills the creativity. I don’t think so. When all the technical headaches are taken care of, there’s more space for the creative part.

What was the most challenging aspect of Blender for you to master, and how does your course help students overcome similar hurdles?
The hardest part has been, and is still, getting everything “technically right.” I’m at a point where I need to care about how the ray tracing engine calculates photons, how lenses warp light, how computers interpret color. And if I don’t get it just right, the effect is broken.

My students don’t need to go that deep (unless they want to work at Industrial Light and Magic) but they will face the same kind of challenge. 3D is a little fragile. Do it wrong, and things break. The difference is, they’ve got me. I wish I had a me.

Can you give us a sneak peek at one of your favorite projects or techniques that students will learn in the course?
Oh, easy. The rendering project. The first real payoff.

By then, students have modeled a bottle, built a little stage, picked materials… but it’s all just set-up. Then we press a button and see everything come alive in color and light and shadow. I tried to make it a really cool moment for the students.

Beyond technical skills, what creative principles or mindsets do you hope students will develop through your course?
The course is mostly software-focused, and I don’t want to pretend I’m a creative guru. But there is one mindset thing I tried to get in there.

Unlike a lot of courses, I don’t script my projects. You’re watching me solve problems live. I make bad choices, I undo things, I sit there staring at it going “ehhh, this isn’t working,” and then fix it.
I want students to see that. No one gets it perfect on the first pass. I hope seeing that will encourage them to keep going when they are stuck.

Is there anything else we should have asked you?
I think a lot of people wonder about the future of 3D, what with AI threatening to kick in the door. Some people seem afraid that learning anything new is a waste of time. And I want to, if I can, use this space to assuage that fear.

AI will integrate into 3D, as it will in every other medium. And hopefully, it will help speed up repetitive tasks. But as far as I can tell, we will keep making the decisions. And just like you have to tell Photoshop’s AI what you want and where you want it, the same goes for 3D.

Today we don’t have much AI for 3D, but that’s bound to change. And I think that’s exciting! Armed with that new technology, this next generation of 3D artists will be much more powerful than those before. And the core ideas, those you learn in the course, will be just as valuable.

Thank you, Robin! Can’t wait for the course to go live! Don’t forget to pre-register for the course here to be notified when it launches.