I'm not certain which "stuff" you like, David, because I'm presenting a mash-up of programs other than Xara. I created the greyscale scene of the ant with Cinema 4D, a modeling/rendering/animation program.
Where to learn? Gosh...um... there are books on modeling, there's an entire forum on tg devoted to modeling; Mike Bailey and gidget are the moderators.
Bear in mind this, though. Technical proficiency in any design program is a matter of time. With enough time, you will certainly know the tools and be able to create things. I feel I'm more proficient using some programs than others, but this proficiency thing has absolutely nothing to do with what you like in my imagery.
What makes a flower look photorealistic is skill, and that can be taught. What leads an artist to imagine a unique, personal aspect of a flower, and then to execute it so that what's on screen or on a piece of paper faithfully represents what's in the artist's eye, and mind, and heart...I think that's about as close as one can get to explaining "talent", or "success", or "I'm happy with what I did" in 90 words or less.
I try very hard to teach "concept" in the Xara Xone tutorials, because familiarity with the tools and what they do are learnable without me. That's what owner's manuals are supposed to do, but not guides, not per se.
If you don't have a song in your heart, so to speak, you'll be able to mechanically reproduce a photo of an object with enough skill with a program, but who on Earth would want to do artwork that appeals to the head and not the heart all day long?
That's why I'd recommend "Drawing on the Right Side of The Brain" which is in its zillionth edition, I think. It teaches you to draw what you see, and not what you think you see, and that's a good starting place to get your skills trained up. And once you have skills, it's a short jump to letting your inner vision drive your skills, and producing what I'd call "Successful Art" over and over again.
That's not the answer you wanted, was it? :)
-g
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