@seanwelty Thanks. I had the biggest value contrast by far in the face to draw attention there. There's not much value difference within the hair - that's why I kept the background value a similar value to the hair so it didn't stand out as much. The black shadows in the reference were actually darker than I went and I wanted to draw the attention to the mouth/nose as they are what Ronnie is to me. I stayed more painterly away from those areas intentionally. Thank you for the input though, I really appreciate it.
Cheers everyone! On to the next one now.
Ace