Idea #1: Outcomes

Outcome #1: Four vintage ladies sharing the Vintage Directory:

Illustration in full RGB colour

Illustration in grey-scale (except for background)

Illustration in sepia tone

I've combined my four vintage characters (from left-to-right: 40's housewife, mod girl, Edwardian lady and flapper girl) and essembled them sharing the Vintage Directory.
The illustration took me approximately eight intermittent hours to complete on Photoshop and only fifteen minutes to roughly sketch out.
While I was fully set on submitting this version in colour, having experimented with the sepia tone, I very much prefer the sepia! It gives it a retro feel, combined with the decadant outfits and hairstyles.

Drawing and editing process:
I used some of my own photographic references (see post below) for a few of the hands portrayed here. The Edwardian lady's hands and the flapper girl's hands were referenced, whereas the other visible two were drawn from imagination.
I'm not fully satisfied with the way the flapper girl looks. Something isn't quite right about her form. I think perhaps her arm looks too chunky? I also haven't added detail to her dress yet, but will go back and do this later.

 The illustration is made up of a number of separate layers. The layers depicted here are the main ones I used. As you can see, all are basic and none vary in opacity or overlay. The magazine the girls are holding is a shape 'pasted into' the foreground layer. The 'hand' layer shown here is a photographic reference I worked from to ensure accuracy.

Cameo brooch detail

There are, however, lots of little details embedded in the illustration, such as the cameo brooch shown above. This was rendered quickly using the Paint Brush tool. The oval shape was created using the Ellipse tool. It isn't clearly visible when zoomed out of the document but is a helpful vintage touch nonetheless!

Before and after: mod girl's make-up

I changed the 60's mod girl's make-up. At first, the eyes were a lot wider but then I edited them and added a better eye-lid shape and curved the make-up around it. I did this because the flapper girl's eyes had been drawn in the same way and I wanted to retain the same style throughout each character.

Colour palette:
The colours I used were made into a new swatch and have been added to my previous post here. Scroll to the bottom of the post to see the colour palette I used.