bravo

This is superb, as usual. Love everything about it: texture, color palette, composition...

Thank you so much! I appreciate the breakdown 

@trawlixn
I don't have them saved up neatly so I'm afraid not, but I can give a general overview of my process for this piece.

First I started with the design, here no references are used and the goal is just to set up a good composition. After I got something decent to work with, I looked for references of the individual animals this creature is composed of, specifically for the things I don't have a good enough understanding of as is (mainly the head and legs).
You can seperate these references into two categories, let's call them direct and indirect. Direct references are ones which you essentially do a copy of or otherwise very close to your design, and indirect references are ones which just give you an idea of the structure of whatever you're creating.
I'd recommend relying less on direct ones and more on indirect ones, for various reasons,  but mostly because they can interfere with and change your design.
As far as where I get my references from, that would Google for the most part, but you can also use somethinh like Sketchfab if you want a better 3D understanding of your subject matter.
 

Thank you guys, you're too kind!

gorgeous use of color work here

This is impressive! Mind if I look at what you referenced? It'd really help for conceptualizing designs!

Amazing work.

this is amazing

nice! 

really fresh, I like how you did the fur

Amazing use of the color palette! The textures look so good 

buenos detalles,  

What a beautiful color transition, the different textures are so clear.

Oh damn, you cooked with this one. I love the part where the fur on the front legs transition into the feathers.

Oh I love the color composition and the way you drew the fur ! Amazing piece !