Speaking from a little albeit scattered
experience, if you use something like this
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=110478.0, or something pre-built, you might save yourself some time. Setting up and lighting the scene is nearly as important as creating the subject matter in the scene. Though if you're already familiar with three point lighting and other photography/art techniques then you're halfway done. If you plan to use Blender 3D, the Blender Guru (CG Cookie as well) channel is a pretty good resource. Even if you plan to use something else like Fusion 360 for rendering, Blender Guru is still a valuable resource for learning tips about setting up scenes and lighting. I wouldn't worry about finishing touch details like color accuracy before you even start to render out images. Chances are that if it looks good via your phone, you're probably fine. And it's super easy to get lost in the work and accidentally spend 8-10+ hours of the day designing a custom scene for a few renders, so I would keep that in mind as well. To stop myself from working to the point of making mistakes I would split the days up so that I do case/plate on the first day, legends/keycap/switch placement on the second day, colors/materials the third day, and lighting during the day I start pushing out finalfinalfinalfinal.png renders. This was before sculpted SA models were available for everyone to use--might be a bit less painful these days. I used Blender 3D, Fusion 360, and FreeCAD (briefly) for modeling from scratch. For Blender 3D I recommend browsing the add-ons and purchasing a few hard surface modeling time savers. Also check out Poliigon for a few pre-made materials too. Because using the node system to create custom materials to simulate ABS/PBT/Steel, etc. was a pain. Fusion 360 already has a decent set of materials of which to choose. I also enjoyed the massive catalog of fasteners available via Fusion 360. Pretty sure I used at least one hex top screw from that catalog. Though I would generally use Blender 3D for rendering out the scene. If you're using Keyshot or Maya I think the lighting/scene setup advise still applies. Though you might have an easier time with modeling and pre-built stuffs compared to Blender 3D which takes a much more hands off approach to 3D modeling. I mean, at some point you might even think to yourself, "Maybe I should design the entire house as well." Which is what one can do after they've designed something as complicated as a keyboard. It might not seem like it at first, but it helps to have a numpad or a keyboard with a numpad handy. I switched off all the Blender 3D numpad hotkeys so that I can use the numpad and a little math for placing everything. It doesn't matter what software you use, a numpad will speed up the process when you switch over to making everything from scratch.
Hope you enjoy the process
