Here are the steps I took to complete the Blood Siren painting:

 

Quick sketch to establish the composition.

 

Detailed drawing. I tend to change the line color to the main color for the painting. This is to have the drawing blend in better once I start painting.

 

I block in all the major colors and lighting.

 

I roughly add detail, trying not to get tied up on refined rendering.

 

Here's a close-up of the face, to show how rough my brush strokes are at this point.

 

I refine the details, and clean up the rough edges.

 

I add the fog with a custom brush called "Cottonball" in Painter which I downloaded from Jinny Brown's Pixel Alley website. The fog is kept on a seperate layer in case I need to make changes to it.

 

After posting this piece at art forums, I got some great critiques, so I went ahead and implemented some of the suggestions.

 

Some close-ups of the finished painting.