I’ve done quite a few test pieces for various skill sets such as tracking, 3d modelling etc.

The first tutorial I followed was a simple beginner’s tutorial for Blender, where you build a simple cup.

I followed the steps, but did create the shape of the coffee mug differently, which in the end made attaching the handle more difficult. I had holes in the mesh of the handle and distortion in the surface in form of pale triangles.

With this tutorial I learnt to use the basics of Blender and mesh modelling, such as extruding inwards, scaling and adding modifiers to a mesh such as the Subdivision Surface modifier. In hindsight I can safely say that my love for and overuse of subdivision surface modifier later in my final piece probably derived from this early tutorial. Before having a go at this tutorial I watched several ‘getting used to the interface of Blender’ and ‘first steps in mesh modelling’ kind of videos on youtube such as this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcpfCrQWHA8