I started by painting the character’s skin. Coloring is done directly on the paint layer.

When painting, I check [Lock Transparent Pixel] to make sure that I paint inside the lines.

 

I start with the skin. I chose the shadow color and shaded with [Darker pencil].

 

The shadows under the eyes were blurred with [Blend] → [Blur].

 

While I usually shade skin with one color, I sometimes add another shadow under the eyes and eyelids. I blurred the new color as well.

 

I painted the eyes and shaded them with a darker color.

 

Next are the cheeks.

I created a new layer above the “skin” layer, and named it “cheeks”.

First, I clicked [Clip at Layer Below] to make painting easier.

 

Next, I set the layer’s blending mode to [Multiply].

 

On the “cheeks” layer, I painted the cheek and eye area with a pale pink [Darker pencil], and blended using [Blend].

 

Multiply mixes colors with the layer below. For this reason, I chose a highly saturated pale pink for the cheek color.

Depending on the drawing, it could be bluish or yellowish. For this piece, I chose a bluish pink.

 

Note: For more about blending modes, refer to the following TIPS.

 

I’ve now finished painting the character’s skin.

 

The rabbits were painted in the same way. I added the shadow colors to their eyelids and red to their noses.

 

The “skin” layer is done.

 

The layers currently look like this.