CGSociety

Hi.
Name's Rory.
This is my first ever post on CGsociety.
My drawing depicts an army of alien creatures called woojems attacking a futuristic city of space explorers. The woojems are assembling robots out of junk using electricity and nano-machines while the soldiers attempt to penetrate their force fields with lasers.
Woojems are creatures that my friends and I made up when we were in grade school when we’d do battlefield drawings with each successive character blowing up the character beforehand. Shout out Joey and Dante!
I've got to say that I've seen a lot of you guys on here with fantastic images that they claim to have done in 3 hours or so. Well my hat’s off to you because this drawing has taken me a week working 2-4 hours each night. The original is at 1600X1200 resolution.
I hope you like it.
PS. If there are any photoshop masters out there who willing to share secrets, I have a question:
How do you make your drawings so detailed without scratchiness in such a short amount of time?
I mostly use a standard brush with stylus pressure set to opacity and scale. I often will create texture by crosshatching and then using the smudge tool. I’d love to hear any suggestions about alternatives to this technique?
Thanks –Rory-