Nice! I love the spots on your Gryffox (biased) hehe. And I particularly like how you did the hands and forearms.
I always found it difficult to get a beak on a un-bird-like head like that. You did it nicely.
RE: PSP & Photoshop. I had both and I found PSP to be more intuitive and a little easier to learn how to use than Photoshop. Photoshop, however, is far more capable of producing results. There are courses online and off on how to use Photoshop to it full potential, but most charge.