My First Digital Painting (1-hour practice piece)

In the past 12 months I've been trying to teach myself more and more computer-specific skills, some out of necessity, some out of pure interest. I've learned how to color artwork in the traditional comic book way (which involves flatting/color separating and rendering, etc.), and some basic web design. Now I'm going to try and learn how to paint digitally -- we'll see how it goes amidst trying to get other things done (I know I'm not the only one who wishes the days were WAY longer -- ah, to be able to get MUCH more done every day ... sigh...). Anyhow, I will often do a "warm-up" drawing of something before I start working on anything else, just to get my creative blood flowing and it often works as a boost too (depending, of course, on how the piece turns out!). So, yesterday I drew this 9 x 12 drawing (approximately 15 or 20 minutes):


Then, after reading up on a few tutorials online (which were basically building on what I've learned about digital coloring from my work on Rex Mundi this past year) I decided later in the day to practice digital painting for the first time using yesterday's drawing. I mostly tried to treat it as a very loose, very NON-precious practice piece, not zooming in at all until the very last pass or two.
So, while I know it's not some major achievement, I am pretty psyched to do some more experimenting with digital painting. Here's the piece again after "painting" it for about 30 or 40 minutes: