This first page is devoted to the first anime character for which I used the computer to color sketches. These are images of Rei, from Neon Genesis Evangelion. I think she's a very interesting character, and she's from one of my favorite anime series, and it's what I'd been seeing the most of at the time of drawing (since it was just coming out with English subtitles).

My first attempt at any drawing colored using the computer has some pretty obvious problems: her right arm isn't connected to her body correctly, her lower legs are completely off, and her face seems a bit smashed in. Still, it did teach me a lot about Canvas, and about transferring small sketches over to bigger ones. That is, when drawing this, I had a small rough sketch of the pose, and I thought that I wouldn't be able to draw the desired level of detail using pen at such a small size. The page was scanned in, then I colored the thing very slowly. (I didn't know much about the various tools at that time.) Many problems, but not bad as a first attempt.

This next picture is the culmination of a few attempts to rework the pose in the picture above. In this case, I went through a progression of pencil sketches, until finally doing a (fine-tipped ball point) pen sketch. I colored it in photoshop, using all of the tricks I've learned in the intervening months. Though I think it's technically superior, I'm still not fully satisfied. Another note: I actually prefer the plain pen sketch to the colored version; somehow, some important details in the face seem to have been distorted by the coloring. Again, not fully satisfied, but I like the progress I'm making.