Best Of

This is a weird take, to me. Like, if you're fine making a mediocre project, in order to just "get something out there", then sure, this is probably good advice. But if you want your game to mean something, to innovate, to make an impact beyond "I have five minutes to kill, I'll spend it playing this game", then that probably means looking beyond yourself, the way most good art does. It probably means pushing yourself to go down rabbit holes, to explore, to investigate—

Most games I really love are people following their vision, people who have ideas about what their ideal game would be, and don't see it out there in the world already. People who go vastly out of their comfort zones to accomplish something they are truly proud of.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with some of your comments; ideas without action will not make a game. All the inspirational art in the world won't mean anything if it doesn't spur you on to create. Similarly, you do have strengths and passions you must play to, if you don't want to fizzle out.

But that's a lot different than "do not follow your vision" or "do what you already know"; which frankly, sounds to me like a recipe for a very mediocre and mundane clone of a game. It's not what will push this medium forward, or fulfill you.

Neox has pretty much nailed it

You need to go round in circles a bunch of times - the real skill is in learning to iterate quickly on ideas.

you absolutely need to get a gameplay template working before you go anywhere near lookdev because gameplay should be one of the drivers behind art style.

the gameplay template and basic premise will inform on critical path art features - eg. you can't make a fishing game without defining what water and fish look like.

the rest of the look can grow from the critical path art features and be guided by how the game plays