Lorekeeper Digital Wip

I am learning to paint and draw digitally, it's slow going because there are so few tutorials for beginners and Photoshop is so complicated to figure out. Enough of the complaints! I drew this a while ago...

It's a quick character sketch for a book I'm writing. Lorekeepers are beings of no particular race or sex, they appear to you in a form you are comfortable with and then give you your destiny in the shape of a small glowing blue orb.

I have been trying to paint it digitally for a while now, sometimes I get close but not far enough and sometimes I mess up completely. Well, I think I'm almost there... I finally figured out enough about Layer Masks to be able to paint it the way I wanted, and I was messing around with some effects and got a really good fabric print (well, I think it's really good). The only problem I currently have is trying to shade the hood... I'm still working on that!

I still have work to do, I need to get more details in the face, and try to get back some of the fabric pattern I have lost from the shading, luckily they are on different layers! 

Claire