Mainly inspired by the "Warrior Vase" below, and Dimitrios Katsikis' reconstructions. Funnily it had nothing to do with Nolan's upcoming film.

Having a light pixel with a dark pixel immediately below it helps define the illusion of a ring as well in this context, makes it "pop" in a sense.

Three dimensonality (having a clear form through shading), and the direction of rings (concentric in this case).
I didn't want a dithering pattern since it feels a little flat to me, so I winged it a bit and it turned out well enough.

It's a majestic creature truly

A little on the older side (2019), but I think it still holds up well enough. Decided to add it on Inprnt as well for anyone who's interested:
www.inprnt.com/gallery/exid...

This is actually a recolour of the original piece from last year, to better suit printing; the original had some very saturated greens and blues that would turn out quite bad if left as is:

Certainly!
As far as atitude I'm not sure, but if you want to improve your perception studying/imitation is probably the most efficient way to do so.

Yes I think so, I'd treat it as matter of convenience. It's easier to learn from something simple (strong contrast), than complex (subtle transitions), and you can often translate the former into the latter with relative ease At the same time you do have things that must be studied for their subtlet

Here's the reference photo

In this case it was pretty simple because the light was strong, so the terminator served as the outline or boundary

Funnily that wasn't an inspiration

❤️