I watched a dozen of videos and can definitely say I have improved my overall understanding of the role with certain aspects of it surprising me. For example, I did not realise how important an accurate reference for scale is in backgrounds and how difficult it is to determine the correct sizes of objects/characters when just eyeballing it, no matter how trained one’s visual library is.
Another thing I was happy to learn is that Layout Artists basically set up a clean, structured and precisely designed foundation for the animators to make the end shot will work in practice work the way the storyboard team and writers expect it to. I found out that Layout is a rather important connective role in studios that seems to go unnoticed and unappreciated as a lot of people are not aware of what it entails or that it even exists, me included before deciding to research it in depth.
My conclusion on whether or not it is a role I see myself in is that I would gladly try it as I am sure it will provide a lot of worthy experience and insight on artists who i would I probably find myself working closely to if I was to be in the role of a storyboard artist or animator (as these are the roles I have been interested in in the past). However, I am of the opinion that long term, it would not fulfil my desire to draw/animate characters which is truly my passion when it comes to this industry.
Nonetheless, I am more than happy to have become more competent in this topic as I am sure my character skills can only improve once having a better grasp of the environment around them.