Photoshop Tutorial Practice #2

In preparation for the concept art we're going to make for our board-games, the class is continuing to do Photoshop tutorials. For the second tutorial from another student's blog, I chose to do the tutorial Clay found for blending: http://www.ctrlpaint.com/home/2011/6/21/brush-technique-blending.html
Since I'm not entirely used to different blending methods in Photoshop, I thought this tutorial would be really beneficial, especially since the artist doing them, Matt Kohr, is super awesome at digital illustration (http://www.mattkohr.com).

The instructor's apple is on the right, and my mine is on the left. I was kind of frustrated in the beginning because he never explained what brush he used, so he had this soft, blendy brush with a special texture that made things blend really nicely, but never showed what settings he used to make it 8(  I didn't manage to replicate his brush so I used the closest I could get to it. Besides that, the tutorial was fun and a great practice in observation and blending with various brushstrokes.