This isn't a full-pledged tutorial, but just a peek at how I went about doing a certain picture of mine. It's the Center of the Universe piece from the Main Gallery.
STEP ONE: Sketch
The sketch. The background is colored because even at the sketch phase, I want to get the feel of what the finished picture will be like. I sketched this in Painter, but it wouldn't make any difference if I did it on a piece of paper.
NEXT STEP...