Hamamelis & Kornblume Commission Process

Decided to find the bits and pieces of my process for another image.

This was a commission I did for Anbessa of his two characters, Hamamelis and Kornblume.

I started off with a series of tiny (ugly XD) drawings of my ideas for the poses and composition:

I decide to go with the doodle on the top left in the  first drawing.  Next, I scan it and load it into photoshop.  I like sketching in photoshop now, since it saves me a lot of time (and paper & printer ink (no need to print references this way)).  On top of the doodle, I start sketching my final lines:

This is what the sketch looked like more cleaned up. The composition was readjusted, as were the poses. Put everything more on a diagonal to make it more dynamic than what was roughed out above.

 I transfered the sketch onto paper and started shading it with a variety of graphite pencils.I felt the image needed an old story feel, so it would greatly benefit from visible pencil strokes.

Next, I decide to add a bit of colour since that tends to catch the eye more. For that "old" feel, I decide to add a yellowish sepia texture to the background to enhance that. This was a texture I made awhile back with watercolour, tea, salt, and alcohol:

But now it appears flat again. So it was time to reintroduce some light. I'm a fan of Royo's fantasy art, so pardon my god rays and mega sword shine X3

Levels are adjusted and now I consider it complete! :)
A rather simple process. Thank you for looking.