I think this is an interesting conversation even if I tend to see things quite differently…
First, I think if you consider yourself as a blender artist you may be in the wrong, I don’t think such a thing exist except for this forums name. Blender isn’t an art form, it’s a 3D tool to do CG.
Would you consider a pencil artist, or a oil paint artist, or rather a drawer / painter ?
A guitarist is a musician playing guitar, and chances are that he is also interested in listening to other instrument and probably doesn’t hang out only with guitarist. But it’s understandable that , in order to learn more the guitar he studies especially guitar and learn from other guitarist too.
Your main tool may be blender, but if it’s the only tool you work with you may limiting too much.
Same with the guitarist, he probably know other tools in order to record himself, or get general knowledge about sound and music and eventually being able to play in a band.
Being a CG artist, you can’t stay in your own bubble in order to learn your craft.
Most of modelers takes inspirations from concept artists that works in 2D.
As someone working in archviz you may have interest/grow a culture of architecture in general, photography too, in order to improve.
If you’re interested in movie making, you need to learn and study other talented artists in very different fields, such as writing, filming, photography, design, comedy, sound,music nearly every art form can find it’s place in the making of a movie.
Chances are that while doing CG you grow other passion not related to CG but imaging in general, like drawing, photography, filming…
I think no-one, see a pixar movie as a presto/renderman movie, that is completely different from a blender movie. It’s CG animation, and the tools aren’t relevant. Or watch a stop motion movie and find it completely irrelevant to your field, it’s the same thing.
Growing interest in these art forms may open the doors to encounter people that have a link to what you do… You try to write a story on your own , what a chance to meet someone who do writing and talk about that field. Meeting an stop motion animator can be so much interesting too…
Eventually you may come to the conclusion that movie and art in general tends to talk about life, things we can all relate to, and in that way everything/everyone in life is interesting and inspiring.
CG and art in general ask for a lot of curiosity and you should feed it with the external world. How to find inspiration otherwise ?
Now, I find quite funny that the solution provided here takes the form of a forum.
While forums are great way to connect with people you wouldn’t otherwise, they still are quite limited.
And I find hanging too much on forums lead to isolation as well. Talking on forum have it’s use, but I find it quite limited compared to meeting people in real life. That’s the thing we should encourage people to do : to go in the outside world, but they probably manage it very well on their own.
Obviously making things together is interesting, say a musician and a videographer doing an experiment together.
But it will be probably much harder to happen over a forum or social media, rather than in real life.
Staying in the “blender bubble” does such experiment append often in a forum ?
But , you may encounter people doing blender next to your place, being friend with and that eventually lead you to do something together.
Same thing can append with other field, you meet someone who has interesting story to tell, you work with him/her in order to make a film. Or you do a music video for a band you like…
So may I ask, don’t you don’t find preferring forums, chat, or other social media, over real life interactions a sign of isolation on it’s own ?