This here is my first Digital Art piece. *Minor edits made a few months later*

I started with a fairly simple sketch which I scanned in, and opened in Adobe Photoshop CS.
I then worked on the colouring, I've done digital colouring before, but it was with lineart, so this is my first digital artwork without the use of lines, working with light, shadow and variations of colour.
I decided to keep it monochrome, although looking back, it might have appeared more 3D if I had used different colours, but I'll keep that in mind next time.
I've had a few comments already, apparently the neck and chest are too long and the cloak is not quite 'flowing' enough, so yes, I admit, something strange happened with the neck and it's pretty much unfixable now, but seeing as she's an elf, perhaps I can get away with it.
The cloak I whipped up pretty quickly, as I didn't think I needed to pay as much attention to it because it was more of a background object, so it ended up looking a little rough and stiff, but I think I may go back and fix the cloak later.

The hardest part of this piece was her face, hands down, I spent ages getting it to look the way I wanted it, but I quite like the result.
The easiest, I think was her hand and the lower half of her dress, I modelled my own hand for it, so I could get the shape right and it immediately started working. And the dress became easier as I went along, the lower part just fell into place for me, it was really surprising but also rewarding.

I think I spent about 20 hours on this, perhaps a little less, so it's not too bad for a first time.
I'm also very happy with the background, it's incredibly simple and was fairly easy to create but the finished effect I'm very pleased with.
Oh, and if you have any questions about how I actually did the colouring, please feel free to leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

But for now I'd thought I'd get some comments and criticism for this piece, so please tell me what you think and don't be afraid to say something's wrong-- it's the only way I can improve!

And finally, I decided to call her Raia at the beginning of the process, so that explains the title.
Thanks!

Christmassy version here: [link]

Art ©AmberDust 2006