One of the major changes in the CG art arena in the last decade or so is the widely available library of pre-made 3D assets. Some are free, and high quality ones cost money, but you can get a ton of content already made online and ready to go.
I've seen some people wondering how an artist like Beeple produces so much work, so quickly, this is how. He purchases the vast majority of his assets that he then uses in his illustrations. This is also the way lots of concept art is made as you can imagine it saves a ton of time.
So this piece is an exercise using these techniques. All the assets here are pre-made. The textures, the models, etc, but of course, the composition, the lighting, the story and how they all come together is where the art comes in.
To me it sort of feels like playing grown up legos or action figures. You've got all these pieces and you can mix and match them to tell your story. It is also a bit freeing to just focus on making an image and letting all the technicalities of making assets fall into the background.
As mentioned in a previous post I got a new iPad not too long ago, and that set me off on weeks of traditional drawing and painting. I'm drifting back into 3D now, but I've been in a bit of a rut on this end. Something like this is good to just get the gears moving again. Hope you like!