I'm a 50 year-old mother of 2. I'm a video game industry veteran, but my role is in operations, not in art. I did a lot of pencil drawing when I was in high school, but abandoned it after graduation until roughly 5 years ago when I started learning digital art. I've taken a couple tutorial sessions here and there, and I have watched a lot of YouTube tutorials. But I'm into art for the fun of it so I don't do any exercises to practice my fundamentals. Thus they're pretty weak. I'm a confirmed hobbyist. I have turned down commissions. I don't want the pressure to perform for anyone, and I don't want to have the stress of meeting expectations. Further, I have a strong career, and I'd rather let other artists out there pick up the commissions.
I have a high degree of aphantasia (the inability to picture images in your "mind's eye.")

If I work at it, I am something like a 4 on this scale. I can have "concepts" of what a picture could be, but if I try to imagine what that concept would look like, the image is almost entirely not there. There is no way to see the details for the sake of translating them into illustrations.
Concept. I start with an idea. Generally, these come from the games that I'm playing.
References. Then I browse and look for references. This process can take hours. References can come from anywhere, but 95% of my references come from:
Adobe Stock - I have a subscription.
AI - generally MidJourney.
Photos - My kids pose for about 60-70% of my images.
Line art. My line art is generally very rough because you don't see it in the final image. And because I'm not great at fundamentals, I almost always start with a grid. I find that I rely on the grid and lines less and less as I progress. My grid boxes are getting larger, and on the whole I need fewer lines than when I started.
Values. I block in values next. (Values are black and white and all the shades of grey in between.) I don't spend too much time here; I virtually scribble them in. Laying the values in roughly helps me make sure that the depth of range of values that I want is present.
Render. I begin to blend the values where they need to be blended, and clearly define hard lines between values where it is appropriate to do so. When this stage is complete, the image looks like a black/white illustration.
Color/Hues. I overlay color on top of the values using Photoshop blending modes. For those who are not familiar with digital art, this would be the same process used to color black and white photography.
Polish/Effects. This could be anything, from changing the contrast, making levels/curves adjustments, or changing the color saturation.
You can see steps 2-7 in the process videos that I upload to this website.
If you have any questions, reach out to me via my email address at the bottom of this page.