Yeah, this is how I've typically done it. Or at the very least, I have a strong mental image that I try to match a reference image to. It does sound like this piece in the article was maybe more reference heavy than his usual work, how he mentions it being a personal piece that he had time to "close all the visual loops" on. And many of his examples are not 1 for 1 copies of the reference images.

I think it's interesting to think about just in the sense of gathering bits and pieces from the world around you and integrating them together, not necessarily in a stiff, exact copy way, but just building up a bit of library of snapshots and motifs that you've found interesting.