This took me about 10 minutes to find the models, and maybe another 10 minutes to set up. It’s absolute garbage… the light leaks all over the place, there’s no texture, the scales are wrong… but my only goal was to figure out how to use Append to add objects and other stuff to an existing file while perhaps telling a small story with a scene.
As a graphic designer, I don’t design very much of my own stuff. 85% of what I do is taking stock images and arranging them to look pleasant, or to advertise something, or to make a bank statement look modern and professional, or stuff along those lines.
I figured that as I get into Blender, I probably wouldn’t be reinventing the wheel much. If there’s a model that would be the main focus of a piece that would take me an hour and a half to two hours to create, and if I’m making, on average, between $25 and $40 an hour, then me buying that model for $7 from Blender Market or Turbo Squid is usually a good deal… especially if I get to reuse it down the line.