Yes but listening is so annoying 
Good for you for recognizing your own blind spots and concertedly moving past them
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Yes, I think my ego is a snapping turtle, always in defensive mode. But the turtle doesn’t go anywhere with this mindset. And let’s just say that I didn’t recognize my blind spots, someone else holds them in front of my eyes for me 
Well, anyway. Time to grow.
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It’s hard to take all those “obvious” advices: use references, practice constantly… Takes a few blows to the ego to realize they were indeed serious
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Hah, I’m grinning while reading your comment. This is EXACTLY how it feels.
“Wait… so these professionals… they really DO these things? Spend hours? Wait, they research stuff? How long- what, months prior starting animating? Well, surely, thats only for- … I need to learn how reality works in order to do my- but… I only want to do my fantasy stuff! Dragons! Unicorns! More dragons!” And then I usually proceed to draw a unicorn that looks like a goat. Hah. Learning is fun.
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Contextually, a unicorn that looks like a goat could be pretty cool
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Yes, absolutely. I’d love to create some unicorns based on other animals/mixtures. I also thought about mixing stags with horses for that. Now I want to continue working, this is addicting. Thanks for the idea.
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I was lucky in that regard. I was exposed to lots of professional artists years ago. When I walked around Disney and Dreamworks, eyes all googly, everybody was surrounded by references and research. And we had a long-term client who was a professional animator whose office was plastered with references and stacks of books. So I soaked that up as simply the way professionals do it.
Better to listen first. You can always toss the advice out later if it turns out not to be good. Because not all offered help is good either, it really depends on what the person themselves knows.
Hey, Asian sometimes-unicorns aren’t based on horses, but more on deer. Though they’re really chimeras and some look quite lionesque; those are interesting – kirin (japanese) or qilin (Chinese).
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@piranha4D This sounds like a fantastic and inspiring experience and is a reminder for myself to study and practice way more. Thank you for your insight! Can’t wait to research creatures like the ones you mentioned.
Update:
The “what am I even trying here”-phase came sooner than anticipated. Mari is quite logical but not extremely “easy” for me to learn. I need to remind myself that I’m basically living in bootcamp-mode at the moment and trying to squeeze in years of not learning anything.
I’ll get there sometime, right? Right. Someday things will make sense.
Learned/started:
- basics of Mari (and stuff like color management, although most of that is still way beyond my understanding)
- baked a displacement map out of Blender and … it’s bad. Really bad. Dont know why yet, need to troubleshoot.
- Started test - texturing. Learning this takes so much time right now but it may be that I’m just very slow.
Next:
- fix the displacement map
- gather some skin textures (would love to get some of texturing.xyz, but still looking for alternatives); wrinkles etc
- find out where to bake AO without substance (blender?)
- research deer eyes and find out how to texture/model
- remember to breathe whenever I get overwhelmed and the critics in my head start yelling too loud
I should sleep. But who needs sleep. 
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Those antlers look amazing! Nice job with those fine fine details, and the wrinkles on the deer look very realistic as well
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Thank you. Still not even remotely there where I want to take it, doesn’t even really have a bump map right now. But I need to remind myself that learning this will take time
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Wow, nice! I’d like to say good progress, but you were great from the start. Nice coloring and face! As a deer fan myself (look, tasty grass! [although not so knowledgable]) I like your deer! I can already imagine him walking in tall grass amongst the trees. Cool stuff 
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Thats kind of you to say (: I’d love to have him animated in the end, even though it’s “just” the head. Thank you for your motivating comment!
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Yes, you can bake AO-only in Blender.
Colour management is super complicated.
What’s bad about your displacement map? Here’s a 1 min video that covers the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxdgc7a7s4E in case you have just been winging it. It includes stuff such as using full float in OpenEXR to save as much detail as possible which I didn’t know before watching it. Might have to watch the one about how to set up Multires as well (I did).
Yes, some day things will make sense. Definitely.
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Thank you! I’ll check out AO in blender tomorrow.
I’m a bit (no, like, really) hesitant to show my displacement map here because it’s horrendous. I think it has artifacts everywhere. Yes, I’m using Full Float and OpenEXR, so thats not it. Gah.
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Well, if you can’t figure it out relatively quickly, post it anyway. That’s what this site excels at, harnessing the greater knowledge out there so we can learn. There is value in figuring things out for oneself, no doubt, and I understand not wanting to show the horror, but feelings of shame for being not yet fully competent really don’t help one solve problems if one gets stuck.
I need to take my own advice. Wireframe for my teapot is incoming.
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Alright. Yes, I’m quite ashamed, but that’s all tied up into my “I should be pro by now”-mindset, so that doesn’t help. I’ll see if I receive a magical solution later today (letter to santa has been sent), otherwise I’ll post it. Thank you.
And yay for teapot wireframe 
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I love it, he looks so noble <3
Heh, I often kick myself for that and then remember that if I tell others “it’s okay to be a noob and learn at your own pace”… I should accept it as well
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Thank you! 
Good to know I’m not alone with this thought pattern Yes, in the end learning is rewarding in itself.
Needed to gather myself today after getting lost in what feels like a deep forest/rabbit hole. And I know I haven’t even touched the surface yet, hah.
Just for my own documentation, here are the things I’m thinking about at the moment. Will take a step back and plan the concept of the stag with the new information, then gather textures (and modify them, I think I really need to edit some in order to get rid of lighting etc).
So next update should be a moodboard and/or new concept sketches with some background on the character. I really want to treat my learning projects as the “real thing”, because that’s what I want to do in the end. This is also why I’m pushing myself to include as much of the normal workflow as possible (the steps, like rigging and shapekeys, animating etc). I absolutely know that I’m currently only learning the basics and a lot is going over my head, but I think I learn this way the best. I’m usually far too impatient to really follow through with a long tutorial - I’m more of a squirrel type, picking up the things in tutorials and wanting to create right away.
That said, I’m always impressed by the discipline of people like @joseph and @piranha4D with finishing projects through tutorials. While we’re talking about being impressed - I’m still amazed I haven’t been active here before. It’s s o extremely inspirational to come here and see all the new posts/artworks from people all over the world.
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Quick baking update, having some problems with cavity (with pointiness node), strange artifacts/points showing up. Baked AO, after that redoing displacement and figuring out why it didn’t work in the first place.
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Before I get to work on texturing the stag tonight, have a little update on the thoughts and sketches for the world/characters. Combining some old ideas (the not-so-original “unicorn without a horn”, but darker), the idea that there is a world in-between, something a child could enter when opening wrong doors etc. My english is clearly holding me back right now, it’s much easier to share my thoughts in my native language.
Tonight I’ll start texturing in Mari, delete the old nodes and start from scratch. Currently searching the internet for all the information I can find.
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