Portrait of my friend Kim, painted in CS5. She's pictured here as a mish-mash sort of costumed gothic loli, lolwut. The background is a screen tone provided by Maxxon that I purchased and scanned in myself....minor details, heh. I will admit that I would prefer to paint these sort of things traditionally, and from life. That's one goal of this upcoming semester.
I'm seeing some definite improvement on this one compared to your previous. Good job! As for a critique, the line on the palm down the arm needs to be cleaned up. The blending on that arm could also use some work. The blending on the shoulder is smokin' hot though, it doesn't need fixing. It might help to push the darkest darks like under the teacup, in the fold of the hair meeting the neck, maybe under the fingers, and a little more under the jawline. But I wouldn't use just the darker tone of the colors already used. I would take the blue from the background, darken it, and use it as a shadow tone to tie the piece together more and imply color reflecting.