I have two versions of this project, however the final one is the first one showed below. The purpose of the assignment was to get familiar with using Photoshop for painting illustrations. (This was actually my very first time painting on a computer and using a Wacom tablet.)
This is my final composition. For the effect in the background I used a normal round brush, make circles with it and lowered the opacity of that layer.
This was my very first attempt to make the background work. I used a gradient on it, however the purpuse of the assignment was to paint and not to use any effects or gradients. That is the reason why my final composition is different.