Blender Abstract Tutorial:
By: Grey Hawk
1. Open up Blender. You should see a pink box, we wont be using this so, delete it. To delete it just hit the delete button.
2. Now we need somthing to make our abstract from. So go up to the top and click:
A. Add
B. Mesh
C. IcoSphere
D. 2 Subdivisons
3. You should now have a sphere with lots of yellow dots on it(vertices).
4. Right click on one of the yellow dots. This will select this one dot yellow and make the rest pink(Yellow-selected Pink-not selected).
5. Hit the B button, this will allow you to select more than one dot at a time. You now should be able to draw a box. Now just draw a box around the egde dots(including the one dot you right clicked on).
6. This is the tricky part, making the shape of your abstract. With your yellow dots selected hit the E button and click extrude. Now pull your dots away from the sphere. If you hold Ctrl down while you are doing this the the dots will be straight.
7. Now, who likes dull points? So hit the S button and make the end pointy.
8. Well, it dosn't look so great right now. So we will add more points. Just right click on a dot you want and draw a box around it and repeat like before. Just keep doing this till your happy.
9. We are now faced with a problem. Hit the 2 button on your numberpad till you see somthing like this:
10. You now can see we were only going out not up and down. To slove this just grab some dots on the top and bottom and make them into points.
11. Your end result should look like this:
12. Well, we want to see what are absrtact looks like right? So hit the Z button. Use the numberpad buttons 8,4,6 and 2 to get differnt views of it and the plus and minus to zoom.
13. Looking at these differnt views you may see you have a problem like I did.
14. These "flaps" don't make our abstract look nice. But they are very easy to get rid of. Just select the vertices that are causing the problem and delete them. If you mess up hit the U button to undo.
15. You are now done with modeling your abstract! You can edit it more if you want, make stuff more pointy, add more points etc... If you see your point is very far away from the center or you do not like where it is, grab the dots on that point and hit the G button and move them to where you want.
16. Even though we are done with the model we are far from done. We need a nice texture. First hit the tab button and we will leave Edit Mode and go into Object Mode(edit mode is where you edit an object).
17. Look below the window and should see somthing called "Panels". To the right of that you should see a ball, click it. New buttons should now have appeared to the right of it, and you should be on a red ball.
18. You now have a new menu at the bottom, click add new. You should now have a color slider. Pick any color. Im going to pick an off white color. If you look back up at the window your abstract should have changed to that color.
19. It is now time for a texture that you have made. It dosn't matter the size of your image. But around 50x50 is ok. To give you an example here is my texture:
20. Hit F6 and click add new. Look through texture type and click image. Then click load image(to the right) and find your picture.
21. Click the red ball again. Now you see where it says shaders? Here you can change how your picture will reflect light etc... You can also change the shader to get more opitons. Don't hit any buttons over there though. Only play around with shader type and the sliders.
22. Once your done with that, you should see a tab to the right called "map to" click it. Here are more buttons that will effect how your render will look. Right now I suggest you only play with the top 2 rows of buttons.
23. Now, to the right of shaders you should see a tab called "mirror transp" click this one also. Once in here click the Ray Mirror button, then slide the ray mir, and fac sliders. Not to much though. Example: try ray mir at .20 and fac at 1.96. If you look down you should see a button called Ray Transp, click it. Like before don't move the sliders to much. Example: try IOR: 1.37 fresnel 0 and fac 1.20
24. Hit the F9 button. Here at the bottom of the left tab you should see a button called set smooth. Click it, this will make the abstract smooth.
25. Hit F10, click the OSA button and click the 16 button right below it. Also to the right of the render button there should be a button called Ray, click it. To the far right there should be a tab called Format, with size x and y. Change these for the size of your picture. Now back where we clicked ray, OSA and 16 there should be % buttons. This is how much % of your picture size you want. So if under format you wanted a 500x500 picture and have it on 50% you will get a 250x250 pic and so on.
26. Hit F5(or click the ball), you should be in the "red ball area" according to the buttons right of panel. Now click the blue and white ball that is right of the red ball. This is how you select the color of your background in your render, just move the sliders.
27. Right now if you where to render your abstract(F12 or F10 then hit render) you would get a big close up and it wouldn't look right. The way to slove this is to move the camera back or make the abstract smaller. I prefer making the abstract smaller, so hit 0 on the numberpad. You are now in camera view and see what the camera will render.
28. To make the abstract smaller, right click on it and hit the S button and shrink it down to a nice size. Now it dosn't look right just being in there by its self. Right click on it and hit shift D, which will cause it to make a copy.
29. To make the most of your render you will need to do somthings. You can move your renders around by right clicking on them and hitting the G button. You can make them bigger or smaller with the S button. Now here is a new thing, you can rotate them by hitting R or you can hit R and hold your mouse wheel down for a better rotate. Also rember if you want to select more than one use the B button and draw a box around them.
30. We are almost done but we need one more thing, better lighing. Hit the 5 button on the numberpad to get out of camera mode. The current light is that yellow ball with the dotted line leading from it. Right click on it and you should be in light mode if your not you can get to it by clicking on the light to the left of the red ball. Here you can change how much power of it(energy), the type of light and the color tint of the light. So play around with the power, light type and colors. The ring around the spot light is where a shawdow would start if you where making a sence. I prefer a spot light but it is up to you. Remeber you can make copys of your lights with Shift D, move them with G and rotate them with R. If you find your light isn't hitting your object, you may need to rotate it, the line is where the light goes. If your having trouble use the number pad and look down on your object. This will make it eaiser to get your lights right.
31. Render your object with F12 or F10 then click render.
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Information
I suggest you make your own texture and not use mine.
These pictures are also renders that can be made, if you want to know more about these pm me. They are simple if you can do that tut, one is just a differnt view of the first pic and the other has some extras.
If you need help, please post here. I will try to explain more or add pictures.
To save: There should be in F10 menu an area that you change the saving format and quality. Then once you get that done, go into file. Saving as will save what you are working on. Save image will save your render. When saving your render I belive you have to put file type. So if it was a PNG, you go to save image then, type your file name dot PNG.
All pictures belong to me and should not be used without my permission, you can use the texture picture though.
This guide is only for use on RuneVillage.net and Atomic6.net.
I brought it back to life again!!! For like tha fith time lol.
should be sticky I find it pretty helpful 
