The Iris Experiment

This is another one of my experiments to improve my art a bit. I wasn't really so concerned with the result as I was with the process to creat it. I started with a pencil drawing, using all of the messy smudging and shading I usually use, then I inked it (A step I never do - inking is NOT one of my strong suits) and finally used markers to fill in the colors. Unfortunately, I didn't guage that the marker colors would get darker as I overlaid them, so I lost a bit of shading and the whole thing ended up darker than I originally intended...

BUT overall I'm happy with what I learned from it! If anyone has any tips for using markers (or knows a good tutorial) I'd love to hear them! Thank you!