Lost previous post
, hopefully this one's worded well.
@pistachio: I know that version was taking it too far. It was just an experimentation on shading. I agree it looked better before without makeup and here's one without/with less makeup.
Can't tell what looks good or bad anymore
In a way, this version also takes it too far. The lips are beginning to lose their form, losing themselves in a smudged mess. Heck, the whole thing's getting lost in a smudged mess. You seem to be losing your grip on the direction of the lightsource and controlling the speculars and contrast, and you seem to be losing, if not getting a very odd grip on, that as well. (And where did the chin go?)
Here's a quick edit showing how I would go about it (working off of r1k's), and a compositional suggestion as well. Sorry for the ugly aliased brushes, it's all I have, but it may actually be a better way to go about this, without the anti-aliased background of course. Here I: dropped the frame to include shoulders, now it looks like she's turning her head to look at something, which might make the looking-up thing more obvious? (But I might have taken the neck-turning too far, ahem) Suggested individual strands of hair, as well as some wavering in a breeze to give a feeling of movement. Redid lighting; now it's overhead as the white arrow indicates. Now the nose and lips cast very slight shadows, as does the neck which now appears more cylindrical. Added a few sky speculars on the hair, because after all I did end up making it a bit glossy. Added a bit of dress/toga/some drapery on the shoulders, which I'm not sure you wanted, but I wanted to see what it looks like (sorry). Values could be adjusted, but other than that I think it looks pretty good.