I did this in photoshop. I had taken this reference photo and was going to use sphere in photoshop to get the look I wanted and paint over that.


I could not get the sphere to do what I wanted so I decided to do a sketch.


the client approved that but wanted less background because there was going to be text there.
I guess the one technic I find most useful is how I make skin/pores. I change a large brush to dissolve with a very low Opacity on it's own layer. then I scale it up and add a drop shadow.

oh to start I dropped in a middle tone on the face and then use a small brush to knock out the highlghts and shadows. I also use a lot masking in the shadow areas.