Sad Anime Girl process on Manga Studios

I wanted this girl to look sketchy even in the line art, so I kept the guidelines. The tank top is made from a loose material and doesn't catch underneath her bust. You still know she has one because of the vertical wrinkles.
The focus is on her eyes and the frame in her hands.
Her eyes have the thickest line width, and following her gaze, you see the frame. In the line art, the only other thing to draw your eyes to the frame is the detail. The rest of the line art is simple, while there is a lot going on around the frame, including the contrasting horizontal line of the hair.

The background color and guidelines on their own layer, Line art on another, and two more layers of color: one for the hair, and one for the elements. The hair and tank top are separated so that the area they 'touch' won't blend together.
I erase everything that's outside the lines, using the eraser tool for the niches and the select tool for larger areas. I ended up erasing some of the guidelines, particularly those on the hands.

After erasing I used the burn tool to create shadows. The dodge tool automatically darkens whatever color you're drawing over so that you don't have to keep going to the color wheel and selecting darker values for each color.
On the anime girl's tank top, you can see that I used shadows to trick the mind to see more wrinkles and reinforce the idea of loose cloth.
I also darkened the entire image with a gradation coming from the right corner.

The text all lies underneath  the gradation layer, except for the 'smile', to make it pop out. :) The text is the only sad thing, really. Anyway, I hoped you liked this short post! More art to come in September.