Lighting
The final step to a character illustration like this is to light the piece. Doing this means defining a general light source and mapping out the scene mentally. From here, I use a Multiply layer set to roughly 45% opacity and begin lining out shade marks with a dark color. This color depends on the illustration, in this case I use a navy blue to match the base coat color while allowing the contrasting colors to echo said base color. The rest is just a simple process of defining where shadows and highlights should be until the final product is achieved.