This is my process in creating this piece:
For this type of project I almost always use a combination Illustrator, Photoshop, and a Wacom Intuos Pro tablet.
To start off I'll look on the internet for inspiration and try to get some ideas. Once I have an idea of what I want to do I'll draw up some thumbnails. For this project I only did three and had an easy time choosing which one I wanted to proceed with.
Once I decide on my thumbnail I'll take out my sketchbook and do a full page sketch. For this I want the lines to be clear and dark because I know I'm going to be using it to trace.
When I'm finished with the sketch I'll upload it to my computer and put it into Illustrator. I then start tracing the sketch in black and white from front to back. I'm not worried about what shade of black and white I use for each shape, I just need to be able to differentiate the shapes because I know I'm going to paint them in Photoshop later.
After I'm happy with what I've done in Illustrator I'll delete the sketch and paste everything as a smart object into Photoshop. Now I start from back to front painting each section, using different layers for almost every shape so if I realize I made a mistake I can easily fix it. I use the default round brush for the entire painting but add noise to it to give the painting texture. This painting ended up being a little over 100 layers.
When I finish the painting I'll add some adjustment layers and wrap it up. This is the final product:
