First things first... a sketch of the drawing.

This one was roughly made with openCanvas 2.2 and a tablet, but you can of course use a regular pencil sketch and scan it.

Since I was planning on mainly using Painter 7 on this one, I just skeched the most important lines and some other minor details. The eye though was the more detailed, because this is the where I want the viewer to focus.

Next thing I did was change the color of the lines to a soft sepia tone to match the warm colors I was going to use.

In Painter 7 now, I selected a dark, but redish sepia tone for the background. As you can see, the lines are now barely noticeable.

Next I used a thick brush to quickly define with the black color the areas where the shadows are going to be, and white to color Yamah's hair a little bit, mostly to mark the shines of the hair. I have only used 3 colors here, so far ^_^

With the color areas defined, I proceed to detailing them more.

I first wanted to define the black shadows, so with several types of brushes I colored more dark areas and tried to give volume to the face. Now we can see how the features of the face look more detailed and real. I also begin to apply the lights to the skin, using a lighter tone than the background one.

The eye also looks more detailed, thanks to the new shadows applied.

I finish the detailing of the shadows and lights of the skin with a few more touches. I used white color to apply more defined shines on the skin, especially over the lips.

I colored the eye, using a pale blue for the iris, and a soft creamy tone for the white of the eye. I finish it applying very bright lights to it, remember the eye has a lot of moisture.

Now that the skin is finished, I continue with the hair. With the white color, I continue defining the strands of hair, and taking in mind the light source for the shines of the hair.

With a few more strokes of a thin brush, the hair looks more realistic now. I use a thinner brush to paint lonely strands of hair over the face. After giving a few more touches to the eyelashes, the coloring is finally done.

Finally, I erase some of the original lines of the sketch, mostly from the hair, so it will look more natural.