Quote - But I think it's the actual process of learning it and knowing how to do it that keeps me content for now, if that makes sense. I don't do renders much anymore...

I'm with Laurie on this. I'm having just as much fun making stuff as I will when I eventually use it in a render, so for me the time taken is almost immaterial because it's all enjoyable. In fact, many of my freebies started life as things I made for a render - except in some cases the render never got done. :)

I realise this attitude may not suit everybody, of course. It used to annoy me when I had to break off assembling a scene to make some modelling adjustment, or a texture map or something - but now I take it all in my stride.