Am I practicing wrong or right?

[ReneAigner]

Also, when looking at what those artists are producing, don't forget that a lot of what is traditionally done as studies (comprehensive compisition studies, colour studies, life studies, gestures, studies from life models, prop studies etc., all of which would have been put together into the grand production of an artwork) nowaydays is seamlessly integrated into the process by means of photobashing and 3D. My point being that although those works are imaginative, they are not from imagination alone, they still rely heavily on information "outside of the artist", only the medium allows for the integration of it into the process itself, which renders preparatory studies like you have to do with oils superflous.

So, in a sense, you don't stop studying when you're producing finished imaginative stuff, you're studying at the same time as you are producing, which is all the more taxing.