Making a Custom Book Cover: A Commission

Hello everyone, I just want to share this illustration I made commission given by @deveerei.

This portrait illustration will be used as a book cover by a Doctor in her upcoming book.
The goal is to make a cartoonish version of herself in a green and orange pantone pallete.

finished illustration, and the Doctor herself

In this illustration, I used the following materials

Faber Castel Color Pencils
Derwent Blender
Vellum Board
Pencil

And I used Photoshop to polish everything.

Scanned version of the traditional portrait |RAW|

The photos below are the work in progress i captured:

I started with the outlines using a fine pencil. I intentionally made the eyes wider for the cartoonish looks. This is different from the caricature portraits. The lines and colors must be soft

I always start the coloring with the eyes. I always love to draw the eyes. Using Faber Castell Classic Color pencils i gave her a cute and dark eyes.

Onced finished, I color the skin with flesh. Start with smooth and light strokes so at the end you'll see where would you apply more countour and shadows.

Eventually, I add the shape of her face by using the flesh color pencil so that it wouldn't leave any marks on the surface when I start to recolor the skin.

The hair is one of the most exciting part to draw. I make sure that her hair is similar to hers so that there's still resemblance.

I filled the color of the hair with Black, Brown and Grey color pencil so that the depths would be seen as well.

Then user a Derwent blender, I polished some part especially the forehead and cheeks.

After doing the traditional part. I scanned the portrait so I could render a digital copy into photoshop, The editing is easy.
I used smudge and liquifying tool to soften the edges and some of the surface.

Here's the video of the layers I used in this portrait.

To make the orange dress, I used a turtle neck png image and applied an oil painting effect so that it would be flatten on the drawing.

And here's finished product:

Update: I and Deveerei presented the illustration to her and she liked it. It's so heart overwhelming :)