In my experience, dither doesn't work great on skin. There obviously a million counter examples, so what I mean is the type of dithering you've done on the face HERE doesn't work. Usually it just masks colors that are not working together, and removes definition of features, and adds weird texture.
Look how good EvilEyes looks without dithering, he gets so much definition in such a small space. He also uses the colors well, less of a paintbucket mentality and more of a liberal approach to using them all over the place to maximize their effectiveness.
EvilEye, I gotta say that edit is amazing. Honestly I think that edit alone stands up as an amazing piece of art. You just captured that slight angle so perfectly, and the expression transcends the ref picture.