Evolution of a wing design

I do not do custom work and one of the reasons is that I rarely succeed in having a wing design finish the way I intended it to look when I started. Oh, sometimes sure, I sit down with the pen tablet and photoshop and bust out an awesome design without breaking into a sweat.

Usually tho, I go through many many steps before I get something good.

For example:
I started out with a basic outline in illustrator, brought that into photoshop, added some blur to the edges. Ok, this is a decent fairy wing. I intended to make something in white with points of light in it.
So . . . points of light, where do those go? Not sure. So I made some bevels and added sparkles. Everyone needs sparkles, right? Ok. . . this design was not working. I knew that. I asked some friend's advice and got some. But still, not working.
I decided to go in a completely different direction - using some overlays from butterfly textures and a gothic purple gradient, I came up with this. Yes!!! Now, this is something that has potential. But it needs something else . . . . something on top.

Yay, little feathers on top. Very dark fae. I have a hard time doing anything that doesn't have a gothic feel to it. Don't know why. I had to muck with the size. I'm still mucking with some very small details on the alpha channel (one or two pixels wide each). But almost done! Now to do these in more colors - the fun part!

I wish more designers would share their design process. I think it helps people to learn what goes into a design - then they will be willing to protect their favorite designer's creations even more than they already do.