Just a little peek into the beginning phase of a digital painting. So far I am just laying in what I think will be an interesting background and setting a light source. Not many layers at this point.  Used a textured brush to get a “wash” down and then worked in a few little details with a smaller, round, pressure sensitive brush.
CLIFFHANGER!

FOLLOW-UP!

Progress. The creature is on a separate layer until I am confident about it. This makes the erasure of an entire limb that just took place far simpler than if the layers had been merged. I have been predominately using the brush tool, eyedropper and navigator. This is the basic pattern of things once I get into a good rhythm, along with Ctrl+[ or ] to decrease or increase my brush size, respectively.

Annnnddd then I completely switched over to Illustrator: