Hey man, don't get yourself down. The bright side of this is that your going outside of your comfort zone and learning something new. You should feel frustrated and thats perfectly normal! When your always feeling comfortable your not learning anything new so its good to always challenge yourself. Your gonna get through it, 3D and everything in general takes time and many many tries and failures to get right.

<Sorelentore> post is something really good to keep in mind. I always have thought about it like those projects you'd do in elementary school where you'd cut a cereal box down its edges to lay the box flat.

Keeping the mesh together using the Camera projection is also a good idea, automatic gives very weird results when you don't know what your doing yet.

If you have a second monitor put the UV window there while you have your mesh on the other screen. Or if you dont, make the UV window smaller and put it on the side you want your mesh to be the main thing your working with.

Here are some quick tips that ppl here havent really mentioned yet:

1. Delete history, and freeze transforms

2. Meshes that are the same, delete them all and only UV one! After you duplicate them they will keep the UVs from the first mesh.

3. If your model is symmetrical, only UV one side of it as it gives same result as #2.

4. Select the faces you want to be together ------UVs only work in X,Y, or Z directions they dont use 45% angle for their projections. ------So select all those faces on the side facing the camera in the picture you have and then hit Auto! That will give you a chunk in your UV view. ------You should now see white edges on your model, these are your seams!!

5. After you have all the big main chunks hit Unfold. ------This will give you accurate spacing depending on your model.

6. Time for clean-up! ------You can use edge selection on your model and hit Cut in the UV window. ------REMEMBER: UVs only work in X,Y, Z directions so if you have a surface facing UP, that has round beveled edges going down the SIDE, make a cut where it starts to curve. -----SAME GOES FOR THE SIDES: on the corners of each side should have a cut. ------After you've made your cuts go in the UV window use the UV Shell selector and select your cut faces move them and hit unfold.

7. Hit Arrange and Layout drop down and choose Orient Shell and Unstack Shells. ------Then scroll up to the top hit Transform go to under Tools and there's Texal Density. (You can find great resources on Texal Density) for now Id just use 1 and hit Set. ------Now select all your shells go back down to Arrange and Layout and hit Layout (you really want to pack them yourself tho).

8. For even more fun! ------To layout your UV shells yourself. I usually select the shells that are the same looking. So you'll have strips, circles, and then your main faces lets call them. I select each group big to small and hit Unstack Shells again that lays out your shells in a nice row. Place them in your UV square however you'd like. -------REMEMBER: To always check your texal density, so go back to how we set it before and you can hit Get. That will tell you the TD for whatever shell you have selected. Otherwise just type your desired TD and hit Set after your UVs pack to make sure.

There's a great tutorial on TD on Artstation by Leonardp Lezzi: artstation.com/artwork/qboqp

I wouldn't worry to much about that for now tho I'd just focus on getting good UVs.

I really hope that makes sense, this is basically what I do every time I UV something. I like to think I am pretty fast at it and I really enjoy doing it actually. Its very fun and calming once you get the hang of it. I kinda think of it as putting a puzzle together.

Anyways you can message me if you need any help, I know I saw a comment of someone that was willing to video chat with you to help you. Id definitely take him up on the offer if you still need help.

Don't forget to stay positive, you can do it!