Behind-the-scenes on "stars from my heart"

As a sort of celebration to finally getting my Photoshop CS2 installed on my beautiful desktop (<3), I decided to work on a painting I thought of last night while listening to "Cosmic Love" by Florence + the Machine.  When I finally made myself stop, it was about two hours; a pretty solid speedpaint.  (I saw "finally stop" because this was one of those pictures I feel like I could have kept tweaking for hours if I'd have let myself).
Here is a first "final" version I completed, then a second finished version I completed after tweaking:

Now, I want to address some of the thought process that went into this painting.  I had an initial idea in my  head, and normally I probably would have just plowed into it.  However, I thought better of it.  Recently, I've been reading the newsletters from Disney Visual Development Artist/Character Designer Chris Oatley.  One of his recent newsletters talked about the "The Starting Buzz"--something I'm sure every artist has felt.  "The Starting Buzz" is when you get an idea for a picture and are so excited you just leap right into it, only to find shortly that you just lose interest.

I am definitely a guilty of practicing this.  After reading Chris's newsletter, I really took a look at my art process and decided to make some changes.  What I'm going to talk about here is my decision to take more time in "pre-production," the beginning of the drawing process when you figure out things like composition, maybe some basic colors, etc.

It took me several tries to figure out exactly how I wanted to frame "stars from my heart."  When I was finally pleased with the composition and started laying down some base colors and values, I'll admit I almost lost faith.  I was having trouble seeing the finished product and felt like I wasn't making progress.   Once that happened, I actually decided to slap some drastic colors and textures onto the picture, just to sort of make a big leap and see something new.  And you know what?  It really helped!  It kind of refreshed the picture for me, and I carried on.

Two hours later, and I had what you see on the screen.  I'm not saying it's perfect--far from, of course--but it was a joy to draw and I really felt like I learned a lot during the process.

So remember, guys: Pre-production is one of the most important--if not the most important--part of the drawing process!  Don't plow through it--embrace it!  :)  I really think it makes the end product much more satisfying!