Improving Silhouettes

Hello again, blog, I know I constantly neglect this place so let's liven it up a little.
I just painted this character yesterday after finally being happy with the design. (I have been revisiting this character and story for quite a while and maybe I finally have the courage to pursue this creative endeavor). I wanted to go through my process because I think it's both easier and harder than it looks. The one thing I can say I'm happy to have learned during my time working as a UI Artist is the pen tool. I had no idea how it worked before and now I use it all the time.

So here is the sketch I was happy with. I used the pen tool to create a shape layer. (I use shapes rather than paths because they're easy for me to reselect when I need to.)

After creating a mask from my shape. I go through a couple of comps for the base colors of the design.

Then I create two more layers one for the shadows (blending mode:multiply) and one for the rim light (blending mode: normal). I rough in the shadows depending on where I've placed the light source. It's all really rough and quick. I then sometimes will use the Hue/Saturation to adjust the color of the shadows. The multiply layer allows you to do this pretty easily because you've only been using the one color.

From there I create layers and begin to really render things out. I'm constantly using the mask to keep everything really clean. At this stage I spend a lot of time polishing the face. The rest of the body is almost done with the first few stages. At the end I slightly adjusted some small things that irked me about my mask. After merging all my layers it's easy to come in and erase those small bits.