Thanks for your comment on Dragon...I very much appreciate it. I start in Adobe Illustrator and draw the left side (always the left for some reason) with the pencil tool, copy, paste, reflect, and align. For the Dragon, I reflected what I could but there are some areas that are not symmetrical so I freehanded around it. I always use opposing colors so I can magic wand areas in Photoshop easily. I then recolor and filter (usually some lighting effects). Sometimes I'll add a gradient mesh. I then color to my taste and I'm done. Hope this helps.