Every job requires the right solution to the problem at hand, so the first line of attack is the developmental sketches that lead to the final artwork.  These are usually what the client gets to see in the approval process before the final solution is arrived at.

Thousands of these sketches have been made and ultimately discarded over the years and are generally seen as throw-aways in the process of arriving at the glamorous colour art, but this is where the hardest work actually lies,  as the answer is revealed in the sketching.