I cannot stress enough how important the thumb-nailing and color study process is, it makes an insaaaane difference in the quality of (at least my) work. Anyways, here’s a finished final for my sci-fi and fantasy illustration class (the prompt was human and alien interaction).
had a dream that I met a wizard and we fell in love and became unhealthily attached to each other so we decided to meld into one single creature together but the process was horrifically slow and painful and most of the dream was us lying in bed holding hands while lesions opened up in our skin and seeped out blue and green fluid and the wizard said "this is going to take a very very long time" and I said "that's ok"