General idea was this was supposed to be a threatened character, holding her own but definitely not at ease.  I wanted to portray the danger she might be in. 

The idea was to produce an inked piece and then use it to create a digital painting - it would be quicker to work on ink rather than undefined pencil (or so I thought).

I made the final inked version because I just really like black and white pieces - I didn't care so much if it would ever get used. 

Color, first stage.  One thing I've learned is coloring on a white background is bad.  Fill the background with a neutralish value of the background you'd eventually like to put in, and then work over that. 

Yeah, this looks pretty awful.  My first color stages always seem to look horrible - I really have to work on it before the piece starts looking anywhere close to how I want it to look.  Maybe I'm a slow color learner or something.  The important thing is not to get discouraged and walk away during the first stage, or you'll never learn how to make it better. 

You can see the inked piece faintly under the color.  I had "cut out" the figure in the inked piece, tinted the lines from black to sepia, and reduced it to 20% opacity - just enough to make it show through, but it would still blend in to the painting and not look comic styled. 

I start coloring areas by blocking them in roughly. 

You'll notice the mirror image - I tend to flip the image periodically when I'm working on it, which is really easy to do when working digitally.  It "refreshes" your brain and helps keep you on target. 

I picked up on a highlight color - in this case a magenta pink.  The yellow candlelight would give everything a purple shadow (shadows will be the contrasting color of the light source), and the pink would be reflected from the dark red silk of her gown. 

I also emphasized the orange in her skin by adding transparent washes of intense color in layers.  I'd add the color, fiddle with the opacity, and then merge it with the base "skin" layer.  If I were more practiced in digital media, or had better color sense, this would probably be unneccessary, but I got the effect I wanted. 

I've also started adding shading to the dress. 

I'm really proud of my candles - probably my favorite part of the piece is the candles.  I don't think the rest of the piece came out as well.  I also did end up adjusting the candleabra from the original inked version, which is crooked and not quite even. 

I wanted the candleabra to look like old silver, and in stage 5 it looked more like iron.  Adding some highlights made it look "shiny".  I also added more pale blue highlights on the figure.  I decided her finger was too long as depicted and changed the position.  There are a lot of finishing touches that a person might not notice, but help to make the figure "fit" in the scene.  For a while I'd just sit there and stare at it, trying to think about the placement of shadows and highlights.  There's a lot of time in those tiny details.  This is why stuff takes me forever to finish.