I tend to look at popular colors first! in my mind these are antique, oilslick, umber, stone and that sort of neutral colors. but thats because im one of those dirtcore skin makers. x)

but hatcheries seems like a good idea, i never thought of that. another idea is to generate color palettes from a website like coolors ahead of time, or find pinterest boards, then make a dragon scry around it. started doing that recently and its been nice to have a direction to be pointed in (and it seems like the people in my shops like it too, my sales been improving and very consistent in my personal experience haha)