My newest Blender project I completed a few days ago. Made entirely in Blender with a smidge of touching up in Photoshop! It didn’t end up how I envisioned it in my head but I’m still pleased with the result regardless.
More of my work here.
Oh wow! Impressive that you did this on the fly!
I feel you on wanting to make things straight from your head, it feels closer to art as a mode of creative self expression.
I have found though, that visual planning and collecting references (even if it’s just like, the color of light from one painting, the texture of an ancient piece of pottery, etc. ) actually gives you more opportunities to be creative and helps build a visual library in your mind that you can draw from in the future. It is a lot of work, though, and feels like it slows you down at first.
Maybe you can try it and see if you like it?