I love it, Laurelin!
As for brushes... Honestly, I'm not good at using them either. I wind up just using individual strokes most of the time. I don't know a thing about PSP so I don't know if you can make your own brushes in that, but I do make my own in photoshop to give the rough "appearance" of hair before I add the detail. You can download "fur" brushes for photoshop but I never got the hang of them.
I can't draw a dang thing without erasing. It's actually easier for me to get things right in Photoshop because I *can* erase my mistakes without ruining the piece.