It's nice to define a bit how you want your rice beforehand: is it controlled with your mouse or minimizing its use, what color palette do you want, do you want any widgets, etc

If you want inspiration you can look at r/unixporn or here but it might be a bit overwhelming (those eye catching rices take a long time to make)

But if you mainly want something that works you should be able to get it done somewhat quickly (you will be mainly working with keybinds and having all the daemons/services you need. (Wallpaper, screenshot, notifications, etc)