Material studies is usually a technique that concept or 2d artists use to define a material; There are some great examples of these on ArtStation.
One of my goals this year was to become more confident in sculpting. As an environment artist, you don't always get to flex that skill, since not every asset requires sculpting, especially hard-surface props.
During my studying and learning, I found many tutorials that cover the process of sculpting a specific asset, but I couldn't seem to find anything that improved my skills in sculpting individual materials like concrete, metal, and wood. I felt that material studies would be a good way to focus purely on defining different surface types while working on my workflows and pipeline for sculpting. This forced me to come up with specific steps and brushes to get the look I was after.
Some of the inspiration came from games that heavily utilise sculpting in their assets, such as God of War, Horizon, and Gears of War. The artist's work on these projects was a big inspiration for me.
I have also been trying to work more on environment tutorials this year, and so I've made a mini tutorial series to cover my approaches and learning on this topic. I hope it can be of value to others who want to improve their sculpting skills. I still want to perfect it even more, but I feel more confident in my sculpting abilities since doing these studies.
https://www.artstation.com/a/46918617