I've had a lot of people asking about my process recently, I'm currently working on something more substantial but until then, maybe this will be helpful.
These drawings are a small sample of my study sketches. The first step in my process is usually to draw similar creatures to whatever I have in mind as accurately as possible, along with anatomy sketches, trying to absorb as much knowledge as possible before starting on my entirely imaginary creature. At that point I put all references away and just draw from my memory. In this way I think I can achieve some balance between imagination and reality in my drawings.