The basics - by definition these are supposedly the simple pieces of foundation everything else should be built on. Why then, does it seem so many people seem to miss some basic fundamentals and end up having to re-learn them at a later stage?
The simple truth, is that we're simply not taught them. Whether it's down to a teaching method, the artist not studying it, or the fact some things just can't be picked up off the net or out of a book but have to be experianced to learn, it's a problem a lot of artists hit eventually. By the time you've read this far, you may be shaking your head thinking something along the lines of, "but that's not me, I know the basics! They're basic, after all and I'm no fool, by-jimminy! I'm modelling and skinning and stuff and all is peachy." - well let me define what I mean by "The Basics" with an overview and a few examples. The basics don't have much to do with your abilities in a program - they're the driving force which compliments them. Like I said above, the basics by definition are the simple pieces of foundation everything else should be built on - but expectations of todays artists are steadily increasing, so the basics are getting more advanced and broad as we go. For a games artist, in their common form they comprise a wide base of things visual, technical, and social/mental.
Visual: encompasses things like an understaning of colour, light, composition, form and shape; just what colour is brass under a blue light? How does a reflection look on a curved surface? How does a cloud light and shadow?
Technical: things like memory efficiency, hardware, and rendering; how do you colours bleeding on TV screens? Why do we use textures to a power of two? How come pieces of this mesh are being rendered in front of stuff which should be in the foreground?
Social/mental: A bit more of a "dark arts" for artists - this is the sort of stuff that made the cliche hippy artist a stereotype :) It encompasses mostly the visual side of art but is to do more with why people like it - things like colour receptivity, moods, symbolism, and visual stimulation; why does the image look sad? How do you attract someones eye to your advertisement? Why do some colours clash? And most importantly, why is this image visually interesting?
So, the question remains - Do you know the basics? If so, you should be able to produce an asset that's optomised for the hardware and renderer you're using, which has an efficient texture that you chose a pleasing colour scheme for, with specular and drop shadow all in the right places, and the surface properties looking realistic - the asset is pleasing to the eye, is optomised for the platform, and doesn't clash with its surroundings. It's sitting at a professional level that would go happily in a modern title. You may be able to produce a fully articulated muscle-bound player model with 20 texture passes and buttock jiggle physics, but if it doesn't run on the platform your developing for and doesn't fit in with the art style or clashes with the surroundings then you're going to have your art director breathing pretty heavily down your neck The point I'm trying to make here is that a well versed guru can still produce an ugly asset if they don't understand what they're making.
Well then, how do you learn the basics? research what you're trying to do; Study the world you live in; isolate your problem and seek out an answer. Too many times I see someone complain they can't produce good looking organic surfaces, so what do they do? Make huge metallic war machines, static objects, weapons etc, instead of simply looking at photographs, or going outside, and studying their subject matter and practising.
Do you know the basics?