Tools Used: computer, mouse, keyboard
sketch 1 - Alchemy - layered strokes; high line weight, low opacity, black + white only
smoothed 2 - GIMP - layers, blend tool; mid-sized regular brush, long strokes, then short strokes to clean up
feathered 3 - GIMP - more layers, blend tool; smaller regular brush, zigzaggy strokes. fiddled with layer opacity to reduce harshness of resulting texture
colored 4 - GIMP - more layers, blend tool, masks;
- one layer per color, solid fill with fully transparent mask. peel away the concealing mask using the blend tool, then reduce the entire layer's opacity so the color doesn't cover up the texture
- eye is an exception since it's from earlier in the process, just a regular stroke on a low layer colorized
- background is the layer between colors and the feathered texture, and so must be fine-tuned via the blend tool, its shade of grey finalized via brightness/contrast tool
