Early Twenties Me would frequent the art museum, and any bookstore with an arts section. Told by career advisors and everyone that art doesn't sell and I should keep it as a hobby, there was no stopping the drive I had, it had to be tamed and worn down by attrition and still it didn't die.
One book I picked up was Mark Wigan's Basics Illustration series, grabbing the third volume before years later when AVA Academia, the publisher ceased functioning. I still managed to pick up every book in this series, and why I'm a stickler for procedure.
Its important to follow steps, but the steps are more or less freeform. They're open ended with no beginning and no clear end. People tell me just to draw and sit down with paper and a pencil to work, but this doesn't work for me, I just struggle being spontaneous and don't doodle. I need briefs, objectives, questions, problems, something to chew on that I'm trying to solve.
"Thinking Visually" starts its research phase by thinking about every word related to your focus with a dictionary and thesaurus and accompanying them with an image. Building on that with spider diagrams, brainstorming, project maps, rough visuals, sketchbooks, scrapbooks, all just to show the process. There is reflections on influences.
All in all, despite how cumbersome it might be to follow the steps, it does have incredible mad scientist vibes about it. The goggles are on, and