Forgot to mention that drawing is a huge minus for me. I can do it and I think my style is realistic but it takes a long time to commit an image to paper, which I'd rather devote elsewhere. This is a huge reason why I've never finished a project - my "production designer" side is way under-developed. I will hope to change that soon.

Wish I had advice for the short attention span people. My problem is the opposite - never enough time to complete what I want.

DPH -  don't sell yourself short. You're the most prolific UV remapper I know. I don't mind UV mapping, only because it's necessary but I don't relish it mainly because there's no "instant gratitude".

Advanced material (I'm guessing procedural?) usage appears often. That's one of my favorite things but the results rarely come out the way I want, so I have a large library of "non Earth" materials.

Acadia - based on your criteria, I'm not a 3D artist either but I really think that's a case of semantics. There is still a finished product based on a concept, using 3D as a medium so all the elements are there. It sounds like you're comparing your work to say, Meats Meiers or someone, which might be a little unfair to him ;)

TrekkieGrrl - "as silly as it seems to make a fork" That's not as silly as it seems because as soon as I read that, I started thinking "how would I make that?" Sure, at the beginning it would seem simple but there would be two difficult areas: correctly shaping the transition between the neck and the "head" and how do you make the area between the tines round / curvy while keeping the rest relatively straight without introducing too much detail? No seriously, that does sound challenging.