November step by step (Patreon)

Sketch.

Detailed sketch 

Lines.
I'm often not sure how much detail I want for the linework of background elements. I think that lines can be very expressive and so are great for drawing people. I think that backgrounds without lines look very pretty (especially nature/landscapes/etc.).

However, I think that only having lines when drawing people and having no lines in the background can be a bit jarring, especially when people interact with background elements, so it's good to have a few lines in the background. I'm just never sure how many lines I want :)

I made sure to keep all the background lines on separate layers, so if I decided I didn't want particular lines, I could hide those layers instantly. 

I started this by painting the ocean. I find the ocean really hard to paint (either there isn't enough detail and it feels fake, or there's too much detail and it feels too solid to be water) so I wanted to make sure the ocean was going well before I started on the rest of the picture.

I think https://twitter.com/loika?lang=en paints incredible oceans/beaches/shorelines, and I drew inspiration from the shapes they use.

Decided not to line the clouds.

More painting. I did not like the way the rocks were turning out - too much detail too far away from the focus point of the painting, it's distracting.

I was going to paint over the rocks and just have sand, when I big-brained it and decided to paint over the beach and just have ocean. I think it's pretty and atmospheric!

More painting. The waves are turning out choppier than I had planned, but I do like how they turned out :) One day I'll practice painting calmer water as well.

I wasn't quite liking the composition with the ocean covering the foreground sand, and the waves at the very edge of the picture creating unnecessary detail/distraction, so I zoomed in a bit. I like this much, much better :)

Blurred out the foreground a bit to keep the focus on Sunati/Austen and we're done~