Did this in 2 days back to back. I never got paid for this one so the image is mine to own. It was originally for the Dragon Lance comic book but the guys who ran the company went under before I could get paid.
I wanted it to look more like older pulp covers done in the 60's and early 70's style of harsher or more raw illustration than the more pollished look of the 80's and on.
Everything is done straight up in PhotoShop on 2 layers and still works out pretty well. All the brushes are custom created using the palette menus that are provided in CS2. Most of the image makes high use of the paintdaubs filter in spots with soft selection. The armour on the knight and the silver scales on the dragon were dodged out with highlights selected on the tool. All the scrapy effects on the painting that look like blending oils are done with the smudge tool and a speckle brush selected then squashed.
I'm thinking of going over the whole thing again making it really cool. I'm thinking of revising it with a few more characters and extending it taller. I guess that would be a whole other painting in the series and would have to take on an underscore 02 moniker.