Lots and lots of research still! 
I am busy with different things at the same time. 
A moodboard of different kinds of styles there are to illustration, so that I can decide what kind I want or in which direction I would like to go.
The second thing, is that I did some research on materials. I had 7 kinds of materials, 2 kinds of undercoat (which are needed for almost all materials if you want to draw/paint/print on it), 8 kinds of paint and 3 kinds of varnish/coating. Lots of combinations! Especially when there are also a lot of different techniques to it, from just layering it up too sanding inbetween every layer and sometime using one layer twice.