Psuedo-Study

So I have tried to upload this pic about 15 times now and every time there has been parts that are corrupted, which is frustrating me. Nonetheless I decided just to post this anyway, since the problem areas are not overwhelming.
        I have the idea that painting images is a great way to figure out how people structure their painting. This method can also teach the person doing the study a great deal about how they themselves paint. This is my attempt I found this really gorgeous painting on conceptart.org while browsing through a sketchbook, unfortunately firefox crashed on me and I lost to whom the painting belonged to, but after a little searching I found out who the original belongs to.
       Viktor Fetsch is his name and Oh Lawdy! is he amazing. 

Here is his version (above), I think I got it pretty good and close to his likeness. Though I wanted to see about leaning towards warmer colors. I don't know how well I did that, I was really pushing my colors towards the hue of Viktor's at some times so I screwed up, but hopefully I worked those areas out so that you can't tell.
Check out more of Viktor Fetsch's work, this is not a request, do it.
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?179065-Fetschbook
http://fetschart.blogspot.com/
http://fetsch.deviantart.com/
and if you want to follow him on twitter he's @ViktorFetsch
Thank you for viewing!!!

A Nice Little Preview

when i started this piece I was just doing some facial studies from one of my friends. I did about 20 or 30 small thumbnail sketches with a 2H, an HB, and a 2B Pencil in one of my sketchbooks. Then i got the Idea of trying some techniques I learned about from watching an Erik Ryan Demonstration on painting the head. Needless to say It progressed even farther. To be honest I'm not sure where I want to take this. I know where I could, but I'm strained between keeping the sensuality of the piece and not distorting it with the things that pop into my mind.
I might do some more color sketches and see what you all think, but I want the end image to have that feeling of sensuality that makes you go:

Well I guess we will just see how that goes.
Some things to look forward to are my Test based tutorial which will be very in-depth and a couple of speed paintings with some painting tips.
Thanks for visiting!!! Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Blood.

I decided to finish this piece with some blood. The imagery felt sufficiently creepy enough with out it, but I have never painted dark and glossy blood like this before. It wasn't too challenging (I covered my face with fake blood blood made form corn syrup/water/red dye for reference) but I think I will benefit from this little study.