Thanks for asking! I'll apologize ahead of time I'm not the best a writing but I hope my answers will be helpful and fun to read
1: I'm really inspired by arcane and into the spider verse! I love the way they can make 3d look like paintings or comic books I love to stylize 3d and I hope with more practice I can make my 3d art come off as different 2d styles. I'm also a big fan of the old low poly games look with the silly pixel texture it's kinda a funny balance between wanting my art to look nothing like 3d and wanting it embrace the sillies of the art form.
2a modeling: I start with cubes for almost everything I make. I started my 3d art journey with texturing Minecraft skins so I kinda like cubes, it also makes unwrapping it onto a flat plane for texturing just a bit easier for me. Here's an image with the geometry of my silly mailbox model highlighted.
3: I use Blender to make all my models although I just learned a little bit of 3ds Max in my first 3d animation class, I'm mostly self taught though that being the one semester of a 3d animation class under my belt but youtube has been a gold mine for every question I have about 3d and I've practically learned everything I know about using Blender of youtube tutorials.
2b texturing: I use an add-on called uv pack master in blender to speed up my uv unwrapping process so I can make my texture look nicer faster. As for painting I use the tools in blender to texture my models with a couple extra brushes from another add-on it's outdated though and I should probably find some new brushes lol. This is what my texture looks like btw! It's a little messy but I hope you can find it helpful!
I'm really passionate about 3d animation and almost everything involving it I love talking about it thank you for asking!