Hello!!! How did you learn how to build in Minecraft? Was it a lot of copying references, or did you just experiment until you found block combinations and structures you liked?
Hii! Thank you for the question.
So it depends on which 'period' we're talking about: building was the very first thing I've done when I got minecraft and I played A LOT of build battles on hypixel, so that's where it all started. At first, since the builds were simple, I did not care much about how precise they were and so it was just a bunch of experiments. I also played with a lot of professional builders and learned the combinations they used and especially
how they built, so where they placed some blocks, where not and how much time they gave to certain things more than others.
Now this was until 2022, when I got accepted into the build team in SRP. Since the building style is very different from the usual hypixel build battles, it took me a while to get used to it: that's when I started to copy paste other builds or references on pinterest until I was able to create something myself with my own imagination. I'd say that the copy pasting was just to adapt to the SRP building style and the rest was little pieces that I combined together while in the build team to improve my skills. In fact, before actually doing something with my own hands, I firstly copy paste another build or reference to get the proportions, the blocks etc. , for example I'm currently building a cathedral on creative by copying a picture from pinterest, so that when I feel ready I can build one myself without any help. Outside of SRP I also started using websites like hueblocks or mods like worldedit to take a step further.
To sum everything up, I'd say it's a little bit of everything! Everything you listed in your question helped me learn in some way, even if a little.