I have a habit of not sharing any of my work as it is being developed since my early sketches are very loose and dirty and take a bit of clean-up before I get the desired end result. But I figured I would share my progress step-by-step.
Step 1: Loose Dirty Sketch
I always sketch a new character as a nude and then add on clothing, to get the shape of the body right before draping it with anything. For this I one ended up looking at Playboy centerfolds from the 60s and 70s, to use as reference material. Playgirl/Playboy really is a great use for that.

Next Step: Clean up…
Step 2: Cleaned Up Sketch
Plenty of erasing and redrawing. Some of the perspectives are off and needed adjusting. And I realized that I might have created a giant girl that is sleeping in a doll bed. But if it makes her comfortable, who am I to argue.

Next Step: Inking…
Step 3: Simple line inking
Breaking out my Rapidograph technical pens, I know, I little bit of old-school to use refillable pets but I like the ritual around it. Keeping them clean, refilling ink etc.
Straight lines are always the most difficult, I could use a ruler but I feel like that takes away from the ‘hand-drawn’ feel of an illustration.

Next step: Inking weights, and shades.
Step 4: Inked weights, Vectorized
After adding some weights to the lines and shades, I scan and vectorize the artwork in illustrator. My husband got a chance to give his option: “You have a problem with feet… (silence)… but it doesn’t matter, all everyone ever care about is the hair. You do great hair.”
He is right, I don’t like drawing feet. And that means I should draw them more often.

Next step: Coloring.
Step 5: Basic Color, Vectorized
Finally, have gotten around to continuing this. Work has been really hectic and left me with very little time for anything else.
I have added basic colors in illustrator to the vectored outlines. The illustration looks a little bland and is in serious need of some shading and highlights.

Next step: Shading and Highlights.
Step 6: Brushed Shading and High-lights, Photoshopped
And now the final result: After exporting the vector artwork to photoshop, while maintaining layers, I have added shadings and highlights using photoshop custom strokes.
Final result.
