From final sketch:
To the digital "color sketch."
To the final paper collage art:
Voila!There are so, so, many more steps involved in making an illustration than what I'm showing here.
There's initial character research, setting research, character sketches, setting sketches, searching for the perfect textures to photograph, photographing those textures, making the handmade papers (which is an entire other huge list of steps itself), painting the painted textures and that's not even mentioning what may have come before -- the writing or idea phase -- if the illustration stems from a story idea or a story itself.
But, nonetheless, here are a few pictures of at least three stages of an illustration sample I recently finished. Enjoy!