Hmmm...ahh....wow. Okay, I think the contrast between the cave interior & the outside landscape is what makes this image great. Without the contrasting colors and images, it would seem more like a colorful doodle. But what we have here is a story. Here's what it feels like to me.
The desert at night isn't necessarily threatening, but it is cold, lonely, and hauntingly beautiful. She rode on, staying close to the rocky cliffs, her only landmark. Her horse was kicking up a cloud of sand that caught the moonlight and glimmered behind her. Blah blah blah. Is the lady lost? Searching for something? For whatever reason she happens upon this wondrous cave in the cliffs and is captivated by its otherwordly beauty. It throbs with light and warmth. She walks deeper & deeper into it, her footsteps bringing the pools to life with ripples and shifting colors. Then, a sound -- a voice? Shifting sand? A footstep? -- startles the woman, and she whirls around to see a stranger standing at the cave's mouth. She is motionless, and for a moment the only visible movement is the stranger's breath condensing into an icy vapor.
All that to say....great work, Janus. ^_^
This is so nifty! It does look like you have a lot of fun with your fingerpainting in Photoshop! It's really neat how you're able to create stuff like this without any premade lineart or anything like that... The bright, irridescent colors of the cave really jump out at you! The different shades of purple and the pastel-y blues are particularly beautiful... Much of the picture is really soft and not too defined, but I really love how "real" the swirls in the bottom center and especially the rock formation in the lower right looks. They almost seem like they were sculpted from Play-Doh or something!
This place actually seems kind of dream-like with the bright colors and lack of definition... I don't think I noticed the figure and the shapes in the darkness when you first showed it to me, but they make a nice touch. It's neat how the figure does reflect the colors in the cave. Never would've guessed that there were pools in there, though... ^^;;; Though now that I look at the ground, I can see that's what it is... ^^;;
I'm not sure what else to say, except that you have such a great imagination for really neat backgrounds! ^-^ Hope you get more inspired soon!