So, directly after I wrote my last post I realized that an update to Blender had been released and that one of the new features was a rendering method known as freestyle .  This is similar to "edge," only it has many more options. Here I placed my previous "edge" picture next to the new "freestyle" rendering.  As well as the much more hand-drawn looking freestyle edges, I also selected "Toon" in the basic material properties (which, by default, is set to "Lambert") and, with a bit of changing the properties (setting the nearby "size" tab to 1.0 instead of 5) you can get something really cel-shaded!  I also set the spectacular (or, how much it reflects light) to zero.  Again, there may still be a few things missing from professional cel-shading, but I am learning more! I've learned that a great way to model is to say "What does this button do?", save your project just in case, and press the button.  Not ...

Waaay back when , I got rather bored, so I drew up a random fellow falling inevitably to an unfortunate demise.  I must unfortunately conclude that after over a year on the blog, he still hasn't reached the bottom. The upper side is that I've not only solved the triangles on his head (it turned out that I had unknowingly duplicated the "head"--and as two things can't occupy the same place at the same time, Blender seems to show this as a random mix-match of triangles) but I've also discovered how to do cel-shaded animation! Here are the timey-wimey details: cel-shading is a way of modeling that makes it kind of look more hand-drawn.  Blender makes this easy: in a "Post Processing" tab in the general properties, you can click a checkbox called "Edge," which will give you a smooth edge surrounding your objects.  Now then, here's the poor fellow I mentioned earlier: The smashing bit about all this is that you can not only cel-shade ...