I made this donut stack from scratch (in Blender)

Until this week, I had never opened Blender. I had admired 3D artists from afar — people who could breathe life into empty space with nothing but polygons, light, and time. But it always felt… distant. Complicated. Out of reach.

So for Week 20 of Project52, I decided to stop watching and start doing. No grand ambition. Just one question:
Can I make something in 3D that actually looks good?

The answer — with a lot of help from Blender Guru — turned out to be yes.

This is the result:

It’s far from perfect. But it’s mine. And more importantly, it represents a full week of learning — not just the tool, but the mindset behind 3D creation.

The Project

If you’ve ever tried learning Blender, you’ve probably heard of Blender Guru’s beginner donut tutorial. It’s something of a rite of passage — and for good reason. It teaches the fundamentals without skipping steps. You don’t just copy a donut; you build it, light it, texture it, and bring it to life.

And that’s exactly what I did.

By the end of the week, I had:

• Modeled and sculpted geometry from scratch

• Applied hand-painted icing with texture and randomness

• Simulated sprinkles with a particle system

• Used shader nodes to control how light bounces off icing vs. dough

• Set up a camera and lighting system for a clean render

• Exported a video animation with a smooth camera pan

But the real value wasn’t in the outcome. It was in how I learned. And what it taught me about design, patience, and detail.

Step 1: Modeling the Base

We started with the humble torus — the default “donut shape.” From there, I learned how to enter Edit Mode and modify the geometry using Blender’s mesh editing tools.

I added loop cuts to give the mesh more definition, applied a subdivision surface modifier to smooth the edges, and used proportional editing to make it feel more natural — slightly irregular, like a real baked object.

Then came the icing: a new shape, sculpted by duplicating the top of the donut and using proportional editing to create drips and waves that feel organic, not mathematical.

This step alone taught me the basics of Blender’s 3D space — navigating orthographic vs perspective views, rotating around objects, and learning how to control detail without overwhelming my scene.

Step 2: Materials & Shaders

Next came a deep dive into materials and shading — a completely new system for me. Blender doesn’t use simple “colors” the way most 2D tools do. It uses shader nodes — a flowchart-like system that defines how light interacts with a surface.

For the donut, I learned how to combine:

• Base Color with texture maps for realism

• Roughness to control shininess

• Subsurface Scattering to simulate light penetrating the dough (yes, that’s a thing)

• Bump and Normal Maps to add surface imperfections

It blew my mind how much these subtle tweaks made the object feel real. The difference between a plastic-looking donut and one that looks edible came down to tiny adjustments in roughness and light diffusion.

For the icing, I added glossy shaders with a smooth falloff, and adjusted the IOR (Index of Refraction) to simulate how sugar glaze reflects light.

Step 3: Texture Painting and Sprinkles

One of the most fun — and surprisingly tricky — parts was adding sprinkles.

I used a particle system to scatter tiny sprinkle models across the surface of the icing. I randomized their rotation and scale, assigned each one a different color material, and made sure they obeyed gravity (no floating sprinkles!).

Then came texture painting — another new skill. I hand-painted rough edges and slight color variation into the icing and donut base to avoid that “CGI look.” That alone added an entire new layer of believability.

This step taught me how much of realism in 3D isn’t about detail — it’s about imperfection. Real-world objects have flaws. Straight lines rarely exist. And the best 3D work embraces that.

Step 4: Lighting & Camera Work

With the model ready, it was time to make it cinematic.

I added an HDRI background for natural environment lighting. This gave the donut soft, ambient light and believable reflections. Then I supplemented with 3-point lighting — a key light, fill light, and rim light to shape the object in the frame.

The camera was positioned carefully with a focal length adjustment and depth of field blur to draw attention to the front donut, while still showing off the stack.

This process alone taught me more about photography fundamentals than I expected. Blender is less about “adding light” and more about sculpting with it.

Step 5: Rendering

Finally came the render.

I experimented with both Eevee (real-time, fast, less accurate) and Cycles (ray-traced, realistic, but slow). I ultimately rendered the animation in Cycles, adjusting:

• Sample count for noise reduction

• Light bounces to simulate physical realism

• Denoising filters to clean up shadows

After a few hours of test renders and tweaks, I had a 4-second video with a slow camera move, natural shadows, and subtle reflections on the icing.

And with that, Week 20 was complete.

What I Took Away

Blender isn’t just a tool. It’s a mindset.

You can’t rush it. You can’t fake your way through it. Every mistake is visible. Every win is earned. But the moment when it clicks — when you see your own creation lit, shaded, and rendered — is wildly satisfying.

This week taught me:

• How visual thinking complements technical skills

• How shaders and lighting are systems, not guesses

• How imperfections = realism

• And how fun it is to create something beautiful from scratch

This was my first render — and I know I’ll cringe at it in a year. But I’ll also remember it as the week where I crossed the threshold from consumer to creator in the 3D world.

What’s Next?

I don’t know yet. Maybe a coffee cup. Maybe a low-poly city. Maybe something original.

But I do know this: Blender has earned a permanent place in my creative toolkit.

See you next week.
Back to the editor.

—
Atul Verma
Project52: One new project, every week, for an entire year.
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