About Death Joe Productions
A practical 3D knowledge base for people trying to understand the work underneath the finished model.
Death Joe Productions is not meant to be another generic Blender blog. The point is to explain the hidden work under 3D models: topology, UVs, rigging prep, shape keys, file formats, animation targets, client scope, and all the small pipeline decisions that make a model usable or useless.
Some pages are for customers trying to commission work without getting lost. Some are for creators trying to package their work better. Some are for learners who need the principle behind the button, not just another "click exactly what I click" tutorial.
What this site is for
The site is here to slow down the vague part before money or time gets wasted. A finished character render tells you almost nothing about whether that model can animate, be edited, go into a game, work as a VTuber avatar, survive a clothing swap, or be legally reused.
That is the gap this site is trying to cover: what the model needs to do, what files matter, what rights actually mean, what "optimized" might have removed, and why a simple-looking request can turn into days of work.
Why I am building it
I did not start in the entertainment industry. I came from manufacturing: CNC lathes, mills, blueprints, measuring parts, editing code at the machine, and trying to make old workflows run better than they had any right to.
Machine shops taught me something that carried straight into 3D: the finished part is only the part people see. The real work is the setup, the tolerances, the order of operations, the mistakes you learned to avoid, and the process that lets the next person repeat the job without guessing.
I also saw what happens when people gatekeep. New people would get hired, ignored, taught badly, then blamed for failing at a job nobody explained to them. Eventually I became the guy who trained the new person when nobody else wanted to do it. Not because I was trying to be a saint. If the new guy learned the work, the whole line moved better.
How that turned into 3D
I got into 3D the messy way. I tried drawing and painting first and found out fast that I was not good at it. Blender felt alien coming from CAD. MMD and broken models pulled me into troubleshooting. PMX Editor, retopology, UVs, shape keys, ZBrush, Marvelous Designer, client repair work, and years of "why did this model explode?" questions became the real education.
A lot of my early tutorials were not grand teaching plans. They were notes for myself and answers to questions people kept asking over and over. That is still the useful part of the work: take the thing that breaks, explain why it broke, and give people a better way to think about the next one.
What I do and do not claim
I know a slice of 3D, not all of it. My personal lane is semi-complex, mid-poly, animation-ready character work for video and content creation: topology, deformation, shape keys, model fixes, and workflow problems around custom characters. I am not pretending to be the final authority on every studio job, every game target, or every software package.
When a page comes from my own experience, I will say so. When a topic needs outside authority, the site should point to real sources instead of pretending my hearsay is enough. That mix is the goal: practical experience where I have it, researched reference where I do not.
How to use the site
Commissioning work? Customer guides help you figure out scope, files, rights, and platform targets before you message an artist. Educate helps you pick buyer or creator paths.
Learning 3D? Learning hub is a self-audit checklist. Academy is where the principle-first lessons live: goal first, tool second, button last.
Already know the category? Scope tools help split avatar types and deliverables before anyone quotes.
DJP3D on YouTube
@DJP_3d is the tutorial channel for Death Joe Productions. Videos send viewers here for written notes, diagrams, downloads, and the longer explanations that do not fit cleanly inside a video.
Some parts of DJP's work may touch artistic nudity or adult material. The public learning pages stay focused on production and pipeline education; see the mature content guide for how that content is separated.
Questions or commission inquiries? @DeathJoeProduct on X.