It may seem like I have been doing a bit of jumping back and forth as we've already established the color space for the scene. For me, after defining the color usage, I tend to be very positive to see the final result. Also by taking the color study break, my mind and my hand are now reset and allowing me to do a even better line drawing.

Nothing new here, what I normally do is open up the rough pose (Step 2) and Conceptual Design (Step 1) in an image viewing program (anything would do - such as ACDSee). Using them as the material for the new final sketch. Create a new document. I created one with 1600 x 1400 at 300 dpi, but I do know I want to crop off at the final stage so the intended size ratio is 3:4 (portrait).

I do tend to start a new layer for new objects added to the scene using Pencil 2B at the brush size 1.3-1.6. I tried to name the layers using easy to recognize names. In the end, there are 6 working layers besides the Canvas: the base character, the suite underneath, the sword, the cloth (robe) and armor, the sky, and the background. This way, I can go back and edit a particular item on a specific layer.

Once the line drawing's completed, I focus on the coloring process. The good thing is we've already defined our color space earlier (Step 3). This makes the coloring a fun process since the toughest part is always choosing colors and this has already been figured out. There are general steps I take to fully color a piece.

My typical digital workflow is much like the real world counterpart. All of the sketch lines are layered up above the canvas because I reserve the canvas for the coloring only. And in the end, there will be only one!...One final canvas layer that is. As stated earlier we will focus only on a very few brush types to learn this technique.

First and foremost, I'll apply the defined color onto the canvas using Digital Water Color. At this point as I want to cover the large amount of surface as quickly as possible, I increase the brush size to around 34.5. Painting section by section, I created the background first followed by the skin tone, hair, cloth, sword handle, and armor respectively.

Brush Selected:
Brush Settings:

Now that the base color’s been put in place. I go on and define local lighting area, defining the dark / light. I moved around the piece a lot at this stage but did so for the similar surface area in this case I began with the skin coloring first then moved on to other areas.

To get a nice blend of color, I introduce another brush Water Color, “New Simple Blender”. The brush’s specialty is to blend on canvas color very nicely. The result is very pleasing for the effect I was looking for. (For the New Simple Blender Brush, I simply glaze lightly over the area I want to blend - too much pressure on the tablet may produce undesired result)