Hey Ken,
I noticed that you use color flats in your process. I was wondering what they are and the purpose that they serve?
When I started doing work for clients I found most of their revisions on finals to be color revisions.
It
helped if I had every major piece of the illustration as a flat shape
of color on its own layer. I could go back and easily select an
individual piece if an art director wanted the character to have a
different color hat or scarf.
I find it helps a lot in my workflow. I can spend a solid block of
time cutting out complex shapes of the drawing rather mindlessly and
then decide on the final palette all at once at the end.