After lowering the opacity of the source, I used a size 7 brush with spacing at 120% and shape dynamics set at pen pressure 25%. I mostly kept the same settings, only changing the size of the brush.
step 4 of 6
Same thing with the skull
step 5 of 6
I made an arch of varing sized dots, then copied and reduced the size, fitting the copy under the original. Merged the five arches into one. Copied, merged, copied merged until I had the background filled. Then copied that and just moved it down to darken the bottom part of the background.
step 6 of 6
Once I had the background the way I wanted it, I erased the parts under the raven and skull. Then I used a large, soft brush with a low fill and erased the background around the raven.