Started the next one, here's a look at the process so far. These preliminary images are colored only by filters and effects, and I haven't started any erasing or touchups yet.
Step 1: Brightness/contrast/intensity and hue/saturation/lightness effects in Corel Photopaint. Brings out the colors and causes cool pixellations.
Step 2: On to Photoshop, this is the "ink outlines" effect. It adds some cool neon and metallic effects. I also applied a little diffusion afterwards to smooth it out.
Detail:
I like the colorful stuff going on here a lot, but it's not what I had in mind for this image. I think I'm going to use the same process on another piece instead. So, running it through Topaz ReStyle (photoshop plugin), it becomes this:
This color scheme sets more of a Ghost in the Shell sort of tone to me, which is just right as a base to start painting and going to work on with the cleanup and extra details, sparklies, etc.
Just to see how it looks, I also ran it through the Topaz Clean3 "cartooned" preset, which, along with Simplify4, is truly amazing for instant digital inking and comic book/cartoonifying effects...
I like this a lot too, but the metallic style from before is significantly lessened, as is the original sketchy/scribbly look. It's more of a hard plastic/camo look here, which again will be useful on another piece. I'm not going to use this one as the base, but I will probably transplant some areas of it into the final mess.
Onward...