I think this is the best possible start.
You explain it pretty simply, yet precisely, so noone will have unnecessary questions.

Great, so far!

--
<sup>Noticing the loosened thread, I should´ve kept tight forever.
Dreams are eternaly as dreams.

~Ruki</sup>

I love the amounts of detail you're going to be adding to this tutorial! And picking references is an excellent start! Can't wait to see the other sections!

--
~ I do believe in fairies, I do I do! ~
~ZUTARA-ETERNITY 'Cause our ship ain't sinkin'
~ColorCreatureClub Critters 'n colour, what more can you ask for?

I like it.
I do the same thing, crop and make it the size I want.

can't wait to se the rest of em! great so far!

--
poems~batmanonrobin

The more you explain, the better

I really like the way you're putting this together (and the picture with the guy with the dog costume, lol! Is that Gabe Tigerman?

--
Proud to be a member of =dapride.

_{~Loyalty, trust, faith and desire, carry love through each darkest fire.}

I'm really glad you agree, 'cause it depends who you're talking to and how much experience they have and so on. So if in doubt it's probably better to be patronising to the ones who can figure it out themselves, than to confuse the ones who can't.

Ahahaha, I scanned my sketchbook for the background and... browsing tutorials on dA, their layouts are so pretty, and apparently I suck at all that stuff. So I'm just gonna keep it simple as possible but still add in everything that occurs to me (which means I'll probably have to edit each part a million times).

XD Nice catch! Yes, that is Gabe Tigerman. When I was looking for stuff to draw, all those examples came out of my SPN folder 'cause I was just scrolling through it.

Yeah, exactly, and the smaller I plan to draw it the more I have to cut off so that the parts that matter can still be as big as possible in the space available.

m(_ _)m Thank you, love.

I kinda feel like, there's no point in this if all I say is stuff that comes before the actual drawing. But when someone suggested explaining how I pick a reference and mess with the colours it seemed like a great idea at the time. XD

Ugh, thank you. I'm gonna cram in as much detail as I can possibly think of. XD And then I guess if I think of a simpler way to phrase stuff later I can just edit it or whatever.

Thank you, my sweet. That is so good to hear. I think the more people ask me for advice, and the more I have to explain stuff, the better I get at it, or like, I can think of better ways to phrase stuff to make it clear and simple.

Exactly! For those who never really used a reference image before and don't know how to get started, and even for those who already do but want to learn something more, this is a great guide to start.

Quite frequently I find very awesome tutorials, but when you get started you notice some parts are missing and makes you realize you only understand half of what the tutorial says. It's better to explain something as good as you can whether then leaving someone in ??? questions.

I like the background, gives you that sketchbook feeling and it's totally appropriate! No worries (:

Haha yes I wasn't exactly sure about Gabe! Such a fun picture. I bet you have a lot of fun SPN pics which are hard to find on the net. I wish I could see them all.

--
Proud to be a member of =dapride.

_{~Loyalty, trust, faith and desire, carry love through each darkest fire.}

I really love how you explained the ref decisions cos it makes sense and its not confusing ^^ Even the actual layout of the tutorial is interesting and makes me wonder how you did it the photoshop technique was also easy to follow and I think many will appreciate this start in the tutorial, including me something I do different with the size of the ref is make it smaller than the actual drawing because when i make it the same size it seems too intimidating almost.. and i can't see the proportions on a bigger scale if that makes sense haha.. well we all have our own ways in doing things (: