My first love is still a painterly style but I can really understand why people become obsessed by creating realistic looking objects from nothing. It’s a weird feeling.
This is a 1990s Gameboy with the Smartasspaint logo on the screen, set on a nice stage with attractive lighting, yet it’s really all 0s and 1s.
You can see in this image how it’s constructed.

This model was built using Blender.