Alex,
Let me chime in my (late) congratulations!!!! Wonderful article and such an educational step-by-step you have composed. So nice to see your work develop, as always.
Allan, Julie and Carlos--thank you all! That is a good point about reference photos and sketches being only a small (but necessary) part of the creation of a work of art. If my step-by-step demo hows this, that will be as much as I can hope for. All those pictures came from ones I saved while doing the WIP on this forum--I'm so glad I saved them.