Photoshop: Brushes

We were told to use 3 colors that made sense, as in, they fit the image. Complimentary. So I chose red, obviously, black and white. The color scheme puts alot of emphasis on the color red and somewhat the black due to contrast. I'm actually really proud of how these came out.
The first image was my first experiment with new brushes. I found alot of cool brushes, but I've always loved the smoke and light streak brushes the best, and so I decided that I would use them in this project. In order to put most of the patterns behind myself, I had to select the background carefully with the quick selection tool, and therefore make it only possible to paint and edit the white space. I had to use a different layer for each color for a layered, thick, effect. After, I 'deselected' and put just a few streaks, smoke effects ontop of myself, to give it some depth.
The second image was a combination. You can't see it as well, but the brushes used in the first image, are behind the smoke layers. Basically, for the new smoke layers, I just repeated the same process with new layers. It then occured to me, maybe it's a bit too crowded? After deciding that it wasn't too crowded, because the intent was to make it all seem hectic around myself, like symbolic..
For the third image, I decided to try a new little experiment, that was with the saturation and the gradient tool. I had to copy every single layer, and merge them so that they'd All be effected by the saturation, and just in case I wanted to toss it. After playing around for a bit, I got the effect I was looking for. So everything on the edges got kindof dark, and dull, and greyscale. I actually really like the third one as well.
In the end, the three images almost turned into a step by step piece. But I'm proud of the way it looks. I've always loved Adobe Photoshop, and I love experimenting with new brushes and techniques, so this assignment was pretty fun for me.