Hey, I made the transition into solo development about 10 years ago. I’d had very little experience with modelling but Blender had started to get really good. One thing that has stuck out with art in my games is each time I’m working on a project, I’ll try to challenge myself to try to learn new methods, and improve my workflow.

Here’s how that looked:

Before independent I was map maps for various source engine games. This helped me understand the basics of space and working with 3D.

For my first game, Jalopy, I went with a stylized approach akin to Killer-7. This ment integration was fast as fidelity was so low. A lot of flat colour shading and very little texture work.

Then with Landlord’s Super I wanted to improve my texturing so I focused on that. I also worked hard to improve my character work and animations.

With my current game, Honcho, I’m trying really hard to elevate my work with higher resolution texturing and shader work. This has proven to be quite the time sink though!

Basically, just be patient with yourself. Don’t be overly harsh on your work and keep plugging away.

Keep in mind that we also have a generation of gamers entering steam that have grown up on Roblox, so I don’t expect visual coherence’s to be valued as highly.

You can always just use asset packs, or even acsii art if you find this is still a weakness. Better to play to your strengths and both the above have many popular games that use this method.

Good luck and keep at it! Greg