First there's the basic pencil sketch, something I'm still trying to improve. It actually takes me longer to settle on the sketch layout than it does to color it. When I've got it the way I want it, it gets inked with a 005 sepia pen, like a Micron. Five bucks at any art store. I need a small pen for fine detail, and I rarely do any sort of ink shadowing. Next comes the first color layer, just a rough pencil crayon shading of the color scheme I want to finish with. This layer is still very grainy and has none of the final smoothness. Third step is polish, a high speed, high pressure color layer that melts the way into uniform blends. I'm trying to achieve the same effects as computer coloring without using a computer to color. Finally, if I want to put the picture into a setting or balance the primary hues, I'll put in a background layer.