Hard to know what to suggest as you make it sound a bit like you've seen everything! If you've read everything on iq's site and followed all the links then you've covered a lot of the the available material.
I’ve done that but I feel like I’m still lacking some theoretical foundation. It might just be practice. Im aware of that project, it’s dope but I guess my question is how do I go from boxes to the insane shit lol.
E.g I’m not super comfortable creating my own sdfs that aren’t just a combination of the geometries from hg.
> E.g I’m not super comfortable creating my own sdfs that aren’t just a combination of the geometries from hg.
Leaving aside complex fractals - isn't it all about combining simple primitives? It's a bit like saying "I understand the basic chords but how do I write a song?"
The basic ingredients are shapes and domain transforms of various kinds. The rest is artistry.
This is a gold mine: http://mercury.sexy/hg_sdf/
Beyond that - just going through everything you can find on Shadertoy line by line.