very simple, friend =)
<strike>Communism gives you the motivation to work so fast it keeps the collective people happy</strike>
nah uh more seriously XD I don't know lol the thing is to have the patience to do the small details - like cutting the character out from a background that has near same colour as his hair, very complexe. For the rest, all I need is good picture sources, I think about a way of how to put them together, think about the needed paintbrush and thats it, the rest is all about flashy special effect done on photoshop.
a year of working on MS paint before knowing about photoshop, helps too XD you get very patient =P