I absolutely love the way painter blends paint so I often start a color palette using an oil or an acrylic brush. Once I have a solid range of colors established I will start to bounce back an forth from Painter to Photoshop. Photoshop seems to give me the texture I want more often than not. All of these were done from photographic reference and took me about 45min to an hour each. Still need to get faster...ughhh...but I seem to have found a technique that is working for me. The bottom panel shows my work in progress. More to come!