Here's a portrait of my wife I'm hoping to have finished in time for her birthday. Any crits/comments would be appreciated. I'm particularly struggling with the highlights on her face. I think they are too subtle but anything I've tried to change them to has been overpowering. Suggestions welcomed.aaah! so big! I'll try to fix that.

My suggestion is to make the hilights much larger. Small hilights will make her face appear kinda oily. Refer to some model photography to see how their faces are illuminated.

Here's where I am currently. I can't seem to get the lighting on her nose right. The color on her cheeks is too red. I'm pretty much hating this now. Thanks for the suggestion though microugly, it seems to have helped a little. I'm open to any other suggestions as well.

With something like this it's all up to artistic interpretation. I can only guess where you want to take the picture.

I'm not an artist (i.e. never studied), so it's not really my place to direct. But I would suggest that if you're new to this stuff, trace. Scan a photo and simply draw over top of it. Use the photo to guide the colours you select and the shapes you define - you'll find plenty of tutorial that describe this method (although few, if any use Inkscape). Many people who create vexels use the Posterise filter in bitmap software to create colour stepping in the photo so they can easily trace shapes.

Thanks for the comment microugly. I've thought about using the posterize technique, but in the end I wanted to try and make this as organic as I could. I already cheated by tracing the main shape with the bezier tool. Anyway, one thing that's been bugging me is the eyes, so I've scrapped the perfectly round irises and symmetric eye shapes for the following result. This is probably pretty close to a finished product as I'm running out of time. The main thing bugging me now is the ear seems sort of distracting. Let me know what you guys think.

Yeah, the ear is a bit too dark. I wouldn't worry about trying to capture the wrinkles in ones ear. I would just make it a bit dark closer to the hole.

I am not sure if this will help with your coloring but this little application Colorpix with pen and paper helpls to grab colors from an image with no problem. It does not install it just runs so to speak. I created a directory for it so that it could have a place to create its .ini file and that is about it.

I'm sorry I don't have any suggestions to offer. But I just wanted to say what a sweet and special gift for your wife. I'm sure she'll absolutely treasure it!