my process...

Gather up all the yarns in selected colour family. Toss in a few accessories for added inspiration and let it percolate. Knit a few swatches to try out the stitch patterns to get a feel for the proper direction.
Here’s the thing, you don’t want to waste the ‘good stuff’ swatching, use the ‘it doesn’t matter/throwaway/giveaway/never use anyway’ stuff – another way to diminish that stash! ;-)
Swap the yarns halfway through the swatch so you get a better feel for the background versus the print. Stand back and look at it. Hold it up in the mirror – you will spot anything wrong or that you don’t like quicker that way.

Settle on the yarns and stitch pattern. Knit a sleeve without a band – you can add it later and still not be committed at that point. The sleeve looks pretty good - my ‘final’ stitch pattern was 40 sts by 60 rows and I realize I could tweak it forever. Make a few adjustments and before knitting the second sleeve, I ‘shuffle’ the stitch pattern – I don’t want anything matching here because that will take away from the idea of skin print, in my mind anyway.
Notice, I’m now calling it ‘skin print’ – leopard would technically have three colours…hope you don’t mind ‘cuz I don’t!