It's so empty, and full of checkerboard patterns!

Okay, first thing you gotta do is create a new file! That's pretty easy to do. Just go to File -> New... Now how big do you want this buggar to be? My drawing of Lyosha is about 1300 x 1450 pixels, but the resolution is kinda low, only 72 pixels per inch. I always forgot to change that.. oh well. If you plan on doing a detailed drawing, you'll want to set it higher (keep in mind that it will affect the physical size and she space size of your drawing..) And you'll end up with something looking like this...

Ahh! Layers, eew.

First you should fill in layer 1 with white, using the paint bucket. This will make the sketch we're gonna do easier to see, etc.Then add a new layer on top of that! You do this by clicking the little icon in the layers window that kinda looks like a folded piece of paper (outlined in yellow here).Whoa, we're cooking now. Okay. Since we're gonna do the layout sketch in this layer, set the layer to "multiply". Help, I dunno what you're talking about! Okay, well, when we set it to "multiply", more or less whatever we draw on this layer will darken the layers underneath it... it's just a good thing, trust me. To set it to "multiply", go to the little pulldown menu over there that says "Normal", and select "Multiply" instead. Okay, time to sketch! Now select the paintbrush tool from your tools window...

About that stylus pressure...

Here's where your tablet comes in! Allright! In the navigator screen (it should ordinarily have a thumbnail of your current drawing; in this case there's nothing there yet), select the Paintbrush options. If you have a drawing pad (and this tutorial is based on the fact that I have one...) set the stylus pressures on for "Size" and "Opacity". I rarely change this setting, because it most closely imitates a real paintbrush. If you're only working with a mouse, you'll have to use the opacity slider to change how dark or light the color is that you lay down. But for tablet users, don't mess with it. We have the opacity and size stylus pressures set, which means the harder you press with your pen, the darker the color, and the bigger the mark. Nifty. Go ahead and click on the Navigator tab again to get it back, you'll need it to zoom in and out.

Sketch! Sketch!

Well, not too complicated. Always make sure the layer you want to draw in is hilighted, or has that little paintbrush icon next to it. Working in the wrong layer is bad! So then, sketch in what you want the overall image to look like! Use a color that will show up. I usually use a blue color, or a color that is different from the main colors of the image, so you can see the sketch easier.You can see that I drew in Lyosha's basic shape, and the shape I wanted the rocks. Fun! Once you've got this done, don't forget to start saving your work. Photoshop likes to crash when you least expect it, believe me. Save as often as you'd like from now on, I'm not gonna tell you to. O.o

Okay then, once you've got the sketch how you like it, go over to your layers window and slide the opacity for this layer down to 34 or 40%. Why? well, this way it will be dark enough to use as a guideline, but not so dark as to hinder what you paint.

I don't always use a sketch, so this part is optional...