Yes, I use brushes made by people more talented than I! The major details are a combination of brushes that I thought blended well together. The rest are just little details that I add to make it all flow.
//For photoshop users who are curious, the details within the brush strokes are a combination of gradient and satin overlays//
You can do this kind of thing for free, too. I use gimp, and it seems to work well for it. Btw, how long did this project take you? It turned out really good.
Yeah, I use Photoshop and Illustrator. Illustrator is a program that uses vector (math) based art, and what I use for the basis of most of my work. It gives a great starting canvas to create stuff like what I did above.
Photoshop is my main tool, using brushes made by people with unbelieveable talent and combining them into images that fit my mood or goal. I finish it off with some blending options and adding details with simple brushes and filter effects that bring it to life.
This particular piece took me around an hour.
While the GIMP is a pretty strong program, replicating the results I have here would be very very difficult, but not impossible.