Another "stages" for those who like watching me struggle and panic:

i selected a group of colours before i had any notion of what to paint - just colours that i thought went well together....

1- The original colours selected from my palette – very rough, all on one layer. i kept the subject matter and composition as simple as possible as i wanted this to be all about the colours...Yes, that breaking some rules - "Where's the story? Where's the concept?" etc. Rules are made to broken - when there is a reason...
2 – A luminosity layer atop 1 – no 'real' painting here, just adding light and shade to stage 1.
3 – Another luminosity layer...Underneath these layers stage 1 is unaltered.
4 – Flattened, value up and saturation down
5 – Luminosity layer again as well as histogram and/or contrast...
6 – a bit of “painting with a textured smudge tool...
7 – Luminosity layer...
8 – Flatten – raise darker values with histogram, bit more smudge 'painting'...
9 – darken back down a little, more smudging – paint in face...

The nest stages were extending the picture areas on both sides and a bit on top and bottom as well.

So the colours i ended up with in the final picture aren't quite what i started off with...sort of cousins of them - what those colours would look like over forms and under certain lights...etc...

Full pic here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/full/13073410/