Hi David You have an amazing ability to render reallistically but concept art is more about problem solving. Now that AI is here there is really very little to no point in rendering ideas (personal opinion) When I was working in concept for videogames, coming up with designs was a lot easier since I only had to focus on the graphic aspect of what I was designing and the story, written parts was somebody else's job. I tend to overthink things so coming up with ideas is problematic for me. A lot of concept at my job was sketching, my job was delivering sketches to a 3D artist so I had to come up with different views of the same object. Props, costumes, maps, characters. These sketches were previously reviewed by my art director so I had to be thorough in my description, meaning they had to know how the designs would look like in 3D. So if you already have a personal project, I'd start populating my portfolio around these plants. Maybe think of creatures or civilizations that use them. Ask yourself questions starting with a timeline. Do these plants live in the past, present or future? Is this past present or future realistic? Fantastic? Is there magic? If there is... what is the tech like? Do people use it for good or for evil? Is this tech available to the general population? Is this tech exclusive to rich people? If there is such a thing as rich and poor people, what are the politics like, what is the currency? are these venomous fungus food for the animals? do they grow in mountains? cold weather? hot weather? swamps?.... I could go on... For example if I pick one question like What if one of these mushrooms were food? Even if they tend to be poisonous, you'd probably have to research were they grow, once you know that you can figure out the fauna around them, maybe create a creature that feeds on this mushroom based on your research, from what I know fungus tends to grow in moist, maybe you only find it in swamps, beneath the roots of a certain tree... etc.... so now you'd have to sketch the area, the flora, and one creature that's tied to the mushroom. Creatures give you the opportunity to research anatomy, you can include that in your research, graphically. Once you have all your sketches just pick the ones you like the most, and design a page to present them. Hope this helps.

Ooooh, nice! https://supermario64.cc/

How in the world did you make them look so real? They look like photographs! Are they 3d models?

Cool concept. The only thing I will say is while they look realistic, and it’s probably what a toxic mushroom will look like in real life. However when designing creatures it’s about giving people clues, and this ones don’t convey danger, or toxicity. you can use triangle shaped things ( pointy things) , colors: purple, green, fluorescent, and even mechanical repeated patterns that don’t usually happen in reality to convey danger.