Still Here. Still Learning.

The tools change every year. New renderers, new workflows, new headlines about where 3D is headed. Some weeks it feels like the whole landscape shifts under your feet.

And yet, you keep showing up to learn.

This year, the Superhive community sent us a clear message. Not in a survey or a comment thread, but in what you chose to spend your time and money on. You are still here, and you are still hungry to learn the craft of Blender. We want to take a moment to celebrate that.

What you told us this year

We recently ran some numbers and of all the new products that launched on Superhive in 2026.  To our surprise, the community favorite wasn't a shiny new add-on. It was a curriculum.

CG Cookie CORE Fundamentals is 11 courses and 336 lessons built for Blender 5.2 LTS. It covers modeling, sculpting, lighting, materials, texturing, animation, rigging, physics, compositing, and now Grease Pencil and Geometry Nodes. Each course builds on the last, "so you always know what comes next and why."

That's not a shortcut. It's 47+ hours of sitting down with Blender and doing the work. And so many of you chose it anyway, alongside the tools and add-ons you already love. That tells us something about this community.  You don't just want results. You want to understand how you got there.

New on Superhive: Advanced Facial Rigging from Blender Studio

We're honored that the Francesco recently reached out to us to list a Blender Studio course on Superhive.  The appetite doesn't stop at the fundamentals. Blender Studio brought its Advanced Facial Rigging course to Superhive, and it's made for artists ready to go deep.

It's taught by Rik Schutte, lead animator at Blender Studio, whose credits include the Blender Open Movies and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Across 54 videos and about 7 hours, Rik walks through ribbon guide meshes and shape-key techniques for natural brow and cheek deformation. Project files, scripts, and add-ons are included.

What we love most is the approach. As the course puts it, "This course is not about rig automation: almost everything is built from scratch." It's for people who want to understand every bone and every shape key, not just press a button.

Why the craft still matters

Technology continues to evolve at increasing speeds, lowering the barrier of entry to both using and creating software. But creating something great still requires a deliberate understanding and exhibition of the fundamentals of craft - process, understanding, observational prowess, problem solving, and a mind shaped by building experience.

That kind of knowledge doesn't go out of date when the next version ships. It's what lets you pick up any new tool and make it yours. Add-ons make you faster. Understanding makes you better. The best artists we know have both.

And there's simple joy in it, too. The first time a render looks the way you pictured it. The first time a rig moves the way you meant it to. No shortcut gives you that feeling.

Thank you for staying curious

To every artist who opened Blender this year to learn something new: thank you. Whether you're modeling your first cube or building your hundredth face rig, you're the reason this community feels so alive.

The landscape will keep changing. We're glad you're still here, still learning, and still making things only you can make.

Ready for your next step? Explore CG Cookie CORE Fundamentals, dive into Advanced Facial Rigging, or browse the full range of Blender courses on Superhive.