ur welcome...
its fine to dont make it look exactly like the reference, but still u have a lot of anatomical flaws... for example theres missing a lot of the heads shape.... forehead and eyes seem way too high (which is the main reason why she looks so old imo).... the lips look strange, (as long as she doesnt have an underbite..) the upper lip should be darker then the lower lip .....
another thing is that u have a lot of colors that are barely visible and therefore arent rly needed.... heres an edit trying to fix some flaws, i didnt look at the reference so maybe the likeness isnt rly given, i was more focused on making her look younger and fixing anatomy anyway...
also u can see i converted ur palette to that of the C64 (which is a good way to get rid of the unneeded colors...) and recolored it afterwards.....
@onek: thanks for the criticism...
I've never said that I wanted that the result had to exactly match the reference photo. In fact I've just used the photo as reference, not as part of a copy; so as for hairs and mouth I've just made them thinking the way I sense the portrayed girl looks now that she has grown...
Anyway I've changed something since the first upload, and maybe I'm going to change something else in the future just for practice...
Her right eye looks a little buggy, kind of like it's lost perspective and somehow managed to fall out of her head. Your palette choice is warm and beautiful though!
looks very different from the reference... why didnt u draw the hair as it is?... she looks like a 50 year old woman, also her expression looks weird, with those compressed lips she looks like shes about to laugh ....
thanks for the edit, it is really interesting...
I got the point and I can understand that you were focused on make her younger and fixing anatomy. That's a good thing when I'm trying to make an original character, but in this case I have to respect the real shape of commissioner face. You're right... she seems to have an high forehead, but that's because she actually has an high forehead. She said she is satisfied by the result and other friends (illustrators too) agreed with her satisfaction. I'm not satisfied because I don't like the lightning effects and some other thing that I've fixed in the previous edit (thanks emolikeburning for pointing that odd eye), but as for the overall I think is not a bad work. Not a masterpiece of course, but nor an abomination...
As for colours you're right. I always prefer low contrast for smoothings shapes, but somethimes I use 4 or 5 colours more than needed. I have this problem on old school pieces, but in modern illustration I simply don't care...