Back with another commission for a friend! Another couples piece, oh boy!
My sketch was as rough as ever, I only concentrate on the biggest shapes in here and don't add in details like the headband of the right character or the shells on the left characters body. It works better for me to try and stay focused on the characters as a whole and not drown in every little aspect.
That also means that I have a lot more to figure out when doing lineart! I'm okay with that though. I rather have it this way then to do a super detailed sketch and try to redraw every single line exactly as it was in the sketch. You know that feeling of "it looked better in the sketch"? That happens to me when the sketch has too many details.
Color was fun as ever, difficult part was figuring out how transluscent I want the fins to be. I played around with some different layers like Overlay and Color Dodge but those had too extreme results for my liking.
And after that it's shading and highlights! Best step as always!
Here is the speed drawing of my process: