Here's the Initial sketch. (actually it's a refined version of the actual rough sketch.) in this phase, all i care about is to nail the basic composition, shape and design. you'll notice that i always begin my artwork with a lineart. the reason is not only because i find it harder to use only sillhouettes and shape bocks. By using lines, i give myself a more detailed 'game plan' of what i'm going to do. So after i'm feeling pretty confident with the line art, the next phase is value rendering.

Here's the value rendering. i decided to use this 'grayscale coloring' technique because i find it very useful to nail better values in my artworks.

After some coloring, here we are, ready to conquer every ship from schooners to man'o'wars!