Okay' It's gonna be quite long. But I use a decent size. 360x160 or 400x160. Nothing too big. Choose a good image of the character I want and use the pen tool to make it into a render. Then resizing or free transform the render so it'll be how you like it. Then I use a random background from google images of trees,moons,etc.and put different filters on them. The use of c4ds are lovely,too. You can google c4ds and download them.I'm using them more often myself. Blend Modes are good such as color burn,color,hue,etc. Other things such as gradient maps and selective color give some unique effects as well. Use alot of things and play around. Hoped that helped. If you did you can always contact me.