Love the colors...

nice colors

Yes, of course. 

could you link to the actual lineart?

 ok. i understand you now. I watched the very shadows of the reference and tried to do them in the piece. i think now i can see the light coming from above.

Better, but you need to take your time on this. It's no less than the hardest part of the job!

Those highlights on the face are still very disturbing, because they are absolutely not readable as features.
The photograph you chose is fine, but not very contrasted, so you have to examine it very attentively to see all the subtle volumes the light shows.
Skipper's piece is good, the area around the mouth is very well defined but he chose to leave the bright areas flat, out of artistic license not study of light!

Done ^^

 Well thanks, i'll made this.

There's some serious pillowshading going on here. The shading doesn't actually relate to a light source. Did you use a ref for it? I'd suggest to! Find a photo in a somewhat similar pose with a well defined light source (or better yet, experiment from life!).