Yea the artistic side of things might be good to try, I do like the idea of exploring toon shading more.
> exploring toon shading
Sounds excellent! And don't hesitate to publish your work.
That is not to say that one is intrinsically better than the other, but for a technically-minded person (== any programmer in this case), the way Houdini works will make much more sense.
Learning either of these tools is not an easy task, but I think that starting with Houdini will feel more natural in cases like yours (SE background, interest in interactive graphics).
You can email me (see my profile here) for some more Houdini-talk!