I understand that Vulcan adds a lot of complexity, but OpenGL and Direct3D are surprisingly finite. Once you learn the graphics pipeline, it’s not too hard to begin drawing things. Init window and device, fill vertex and index buffers, load textures, load vertex and pixel shaders, set each of these things as the active thing, draw. Of course you can also explore the extents of all these entities until the sun engulfs earth. Even though I’ve been at it for 30 years, I realized long ago I would never keep up with, learn, and implement every notable technique even if I did nothing else for the rest of my life. But drawing nice looking, animated 3D things is very tractable.