I guess I'm interested in 3D stuff because I feel like I'm living in the birth of a new medium, like when people discovered painting, or dance. Most people doin

I guess I'm interested in 3D stuff because I feel like I'm living in the birth of a new medium, like when people discovered painting, or dance. Most people doing 3d are doing stuff you could do in another medium, like film but cheaper, or interactive. On the one hand, you're absolutely right when you say that it's largely unproductive to work outside of your speciality. On the other, I think it's a bit like painters learning to make their own frames and mix their own paints. It's not strictly necessary, but it deepens the understanding, and it opens the door to loads of stylistic discoveries. I think the thing I like about python, or programming in general as a creative technique, is the combination of amazing fine-grain control, with absurd expressiveness. The kind of techniques you learn as an artist are usually strong on one or the other. Crosshatch gives you a lot of control over light and shade, but it's a time-consuming, boilerplate kinda technique. Most traditional techniques are like that, or, like throwing paint at a wall - very expressive, but no control. Programming the creation of sculptures and images is the kind of amazing opportunity that it feels sort of crazy to pass up. I've spent an inordinate amount of time refining my ability to draw nice gradients with a set of pencils - and now I have a machine that can give me a perfect gradient with a couple of lines of code!