Sketch in Photoshop on Wacom. Used a Poser mannequin to get the pose right.
I like to use light blue when roughing out, kind of a holdover from when comic artists used (and still do) non-photographic blue pencils to make their pencil sketches. It's neat because after the inker inks it, the drawing got photocopied, where the blue lines underneath wouldn't get picked up and you have a nice, inked drawing without having to erase the sketch. Don't really need to do it on a Wacom in Photoshop of course, but I just feel more comfortable with it, more free to make mistakes ^^;;.
Lines are blacked in and gray tones made. There's a theory floating around that your eyes will pick up on changes in value (lights and darks) a millisecond before they read the color. So it's a good idea to balance out the grays so the right shades pop out and they all work together before laying in the color.
Big jump here to the final version. Came out nice, (she's my desktop, now ^^) but had to cheat a bit on the water. Filtered and distorted the hell out of a generic water pic to make it look like it fit in with Sam. Did draw the swirling foam and water around her legs though.
Not too happy with the look for Xeros the cat. Will probably change him next time I draw him.
