RETRO POST, most people will probably miss this but oh well, that big fat image was bloating the thread, and didn't want a blank post so I'll type here just to be different.
I probably need to look at more books, although I have a subscription to ImagineFX which is a pretty good concentrated dose of digital art and is quite inspirational and often insightful, once I start struggling too much I'll probably seek some direction from books etc or even feedback from the community here or elsewhere, as is I just try figuring out most of it myself and come up with my own approaches, while taking examples and reference from places, probably a pretty time intensive approach but it pays of in the synapses that fire and form and it's proven that learning and formulating your own approach to things reinforces your recall of the techniques over approaching things via existing methods or trying to learn certain approaches, most only a percentage of what you learn is retained, but if the thoughts and observations are your own it sticks more, at least that's what I've come to believe