Here’s one way of doing just that:
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Learn the basis of the Blender user interface. There’s a nice introduction at blender.org. The introduction uses the term “window” for the 3D-view and other views. I will call them “views” and refer to the content as “panels”.
Quick version of the introduction:
- Right click the borders between views to join and split them
- Middle-click/drag to move the contents of a view around
- Scoll the mouse-wheel to zoom in or out from the contents of a view
- Start out with a 3D-view, the UV/Image view and a buttons view, as shown here:
- Select the cube, press Tab for edit mode and u to unwrap.
Select the bottom choice: Unwrap (smart projections).
(If you have complicated 3D-object you might want to mark seams and unwrap with another method).
Click ok.
- In the UV/Image view, select Image->New and click ok.
Scroll the mousewheel down to zoom out, if needed.
- Press F6 and select texture type Image.
- With the tiny button in front of Load, select the
image you created in step 4 (Untitled)
- Press F5 and in Map input click the litte UV-button
(lower right of the screenshot)
- In the 3D-view select Texture paint instead of Edit mode
- Press F9 and select a color in the Paint panel
- Now, just paint directly on the cube! Notice how the image that is the UV-texture also updates when you paint. The cube can be rotated with the middle mousebutton.
- In the UV/Image view, enable painting. Now you can draw directly in the UV/Image-view too.
- It is possible to turn off the grid and axes in the 3D-view with View->View properties.
- If you switch the 3D-view back to edit mode with Tab, you can paint in the UV/Image view while also seeing the lines of
the UV-map. Switch back to Texture Paint with Tab if you want to change the brush or color.
- Press F12 to render.
- That’s it!
Now you know how to paint directly on your 3D-models in Blender. 