I tried creating this without sketching and just painted. I was tempted to do it all with one layer because for some unknown reason I am more at ease with painting than illustrating.
I ended up with the second version:
I read this saying on some other art groups which I can't recall but it stuck with me.
Painters paint to illustrate. Illustrators illustrate to paint.
I'm just doing this for a hobby but in my opinion, paintings tend to have more room for creativity in representing something and that creativity leads to different styles. There's no absolute way to draw dreams because these are in tangible, or even concepts like virtue but painters will paint something and try to illustrate it to have a tangible form.
Illustrators have a concrete image in mind and they illustrate this first then paint over it. Illustration process is creating an image based off an existing image but adding more stylized representation to it.
While there is an overlap between these two processes with the end result to produce art, I find that painting has no boundaries when it comes to self expression as you can find abstract art that may not appear to have visual sense to most viewers. On the other hand, if an illustrator is drawing something, it's usually something viewers can ground to the physical realm with a stylized representation.
The struggle I had learning how to do digital art was trying to work like an illustrator when I'm more inclined to approach each piece like a painter. I'm not good with holding lines, sketches with the intention to paint them after. I'd rather just paint first then sketch on top to have it in a cohesive form. Just some reflection over my art practice.
This isn't going to improve my works, but it does help with accepting where the flaw to my process lies.
First Version with the big eyes:
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