From Pencil Sketch to Digital Character

I'm sure there's a faster, more efficient way to do this, but I'm VERY new to digital illustration. I'm also very old school--I LOVE paper and pen or pencil. They will always be my first love. But I'm having a lot of fun trying some new digital lettering and illustration!

For this little lady I did a quick sketch in my Bullet Journal and I ended up really liking the little character that emerged. I love to see the evolution and process of art so I figured maybe you do too. So here are the steps I used.

First, I scanned the page onto my computer.

I then isolated the image in Photoshop by basically painting out all the background.

I used an Instagram filter to lighten up the image which got rid of the ghosting that was coming through from the page behind it. There are still some dots from my Leuchtturm1917 notebook showing through but I'm ok with that. I think they add character and once I add the color they'll be barely visible.

I then opened the lightened image in the ProCreate app on my (new!!) iPad Pro and added some digital color and added back in some of the shading that was lost when I lightened the image.

And lastly, (still in the ProCreate app) I added some lettering for a fun, playful touch.