Illustration Friday - Camouflage

Ugh! I had big plans for making this my best digital piece yet, but it all fell apart due mostly to time constraints. I tried making a plaid pattern in Photoshop but I couldn't figure out how to tile it correctly, so had to search for pictures of plaid. I ran out of time while rendering it in Photoshop and it never really came out the way I wanted it to. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I'm still learning my way around the brushes and other tools in Photoshop. I wanted to make a drop shadow but I couldn't figure out how to make the edges soft. I tried feathering it but it didn't help, so I ended up just using the airbrush tool at 30% or so to make a little bit of shadow. Will I ever learn what I'm doing with this program?