Some of what I've been learning

I've been learning all about every branch of 3d for the last two years and have chosen to focus down Environment art as a specialty within the last six months. I am completely self taught outside of the occaisional paid course or what I can scrounge up from talking to fellow artists.

For example: Recently I learned from a Japanese artist that everything is secondary to conveying Intent. So nothing should be thrown in haphazardly, every line has a purpose, the colors have a purpose. ie. You can make the color gold convey anger if you intend it to do so by putting in that effort to communicate that through the image. So perhaps the gold can have many many more variants and blotches around one character where near another character it could be two shades of gold or even just one flat color. One is chaotic, one is calm. However, it doesnt matter if its gold, it could be any color. It's just a vessel to communicate. Same can go for how a line is drawn or a shape is arranged. Just something to think about. It was a very interesting conversation and I hope some of what I gathered came across here.

Tools and What I do for fun

Blender has been my main tool, but I have been recently learning the substance suite and have known basic Houdini and Unreal for awhile now. Aswell as how to work between them all. I do need to continue to learn both Houdini and Unreal as they're both very useful towards improving productivity in Environment creation.

I do also occasionally create characters and creatures for fun. That said, everytime I deviate towards a different task outside of environments or portfolio improvements now, I feel bad because I need to really ground my skillset before I spread outwards and improve a completely different skillset. There's always so much to learn. But thats part of the fun.