The Art Challenge: Progress Report

Hello!
I've been working really hard on my art challenge the past couple weeks. I wasn't going to show you the progress until I had finished it a bit more, but I was informed it might help inspire any of you who are doing challenges to keep working if I post my progress. So here it is!
I had a really hard time starting this challenge. It was bizarre! I have all the ideas, I can even envision the final pieces in my head, color and all, and I just didn't want to start. I think mostly it was a fear of not being able to put what I was envisioning on to paper. Then I found this really cool artist (as in musician) that my friend introduced me to, and I was really inspired by her music. Since I was feeling creative every time I heard one of her songs, I decided to just listen to her album on repeat and start drawing. Guess what? It actually worked! (In case your curious, the artist is LP. check her out! Here is her website). Now every time I don't feel like working on my project, I start playing her album. So far it's really working for me. Maybe if you are stuck, you should find a new artist that inspires you. It worked for me, it could also work for you!
So here is my process for this challenge (and really any piece I am working on):
The first theme I picked to illustrate a series for was bullying, or being picked on. First, I write down any and all ideas that come to my head and draw the roughest thumbnails. These are so rough I think I am probably the only one who can decipher them. Also, for this series, I had it pretty clearly in my head, so I didn't need as many thumbnails.

The scribbled notes in my little sketchbook. As you can see, the thumbnails aren't much of anything

Then I start making tighter, but still loose, sketches in my sketchbook.

Then, I traced everything onto tracing paper. This enabled me to make everything clean, figure out stuff I wanted to take out, and make the picture a little more legible to me. I traced it with pencil because I wanted that kind of line in my final piece.

Then I added color and texture in photoshop. I've only "finished" one so far, but here is a look.
I wanted to work in a limited color palette to really challenge myself.

I showed these to my friend Olivia who is also doing this challenge (don't forget to check out her tumblr to see her work!). I also showed these to a group of illustrators I have been meeting with every couple of months. They were all able to give me really good feedback, so there will be some changes to these sketches the next time you see them. They also inspired me to make this into a longer story! I think for the purposes of my challenge, I will still only try to finish 6 of the pieces, but I may add the other sketches if I have time.
Now it's time to get back to work. I have a lot to do! Hopefully, this was inspirational for your Monday. How are your projects going?