Now, for global domination...

First things first, it appears I now have readers from the UK, USA, Germany, France, China and Singapore! Thank you so much everyone for reading and I hope you continue enjoying this blog.

Now, onto business, as it were.
Yesterday, I mentioned the image used a compilation of the following things I've been working on recently:

• Texturing
• Lighting
• Shadows
• Contrast
• Image Composition
• Colour Theory
• Backgrounds

I figured it may be a good idea to expand on a few of these to give you better idea of what I've been doing recently.

Texturing
In the dragon scene, the texturing was incredibly easy. The main scale texture simply involved selecting the dragon, finding a suitable brush, increasing it's brush size (approx. 2000 pixels) and applying the texture to the dragon. Usually, you'd want to find a good, suitable texture (usually online, make sure you get permission if applicable) however in this case nothing more than a textured brush was needed.

Lighting/Shadows
Here, the main light source came from the green moon, however the red to purple horizon was also a light emitting source. The horizon implied being extended up into a purple sky, which was reflected into the fog below, whereas the stronger red and green sources were used as the main lighting points of the mountains, gryphons and dragon. Each retained a lot of their original colouring, though the edges closest to the light sources show the reflected colours. The clouds also show some colouring from the green moon, emphasizing the strength of the light source.

Contrast and Colour Theory
Colour theory dictates that colours on opposite ends of the spectrum compliment and contrast each other. Red is to Cyan//Green as Blue is to Orange. In fact, blue and orange is such a popular combination of complimentary colours it's set off a bit of a trend. A mini biology lesson: The human eye doesn't perceive all hues to be the same brightness, yellow seems naturally lighter than purple and so on. As such, orange and blue, as well as being of opposite hues, are also on opposite sides of our perceived view of brightness, making them a very dynamic contrast and possibly the strongest pair of complimentary colours available.
Within the dragon image, the green is used as a compliment to the red and purple hues, adding a point of interest in the sky. I also added the bright, contrasting moon to be a good light source to the gryphons, who would otherwise of been lost into the sky.

Image Composition
The rule of thirds comes heavily into play here. with the gryphons appearing on the upper-left cross section and the dragon taking up the lower right. There's also a very strong sense of purpose in the image (the dragon-predator and gryphon-prey) with the line-of-sight easily distinguishable between the two types of creature.

Backgrounds
Not much to say here, a background can introduce a strong sense of purpose to an image, through unless the scene contains feature points, try not to let them overshadow the main characters in the picture. Mergers are always a worry and should be avoided wherever possible.

That's all for today! Although: A small note I'd like to make is that there are many lifetimes worth of reading about good photo composition to be found online, though below I've included 2 particularly good websites with free, useful information about the subject. These lessons are invaluable both in photography and in digital artwork, and it's always worth keeping these ideas in mind when creating a piece.
Guidelines for Better Photographic Composition
How to Take a Good Photograph