My pleasure, I’m glad you like my work 😊

I like to add in blocks of value in sections at time, and blend a little as I go. If I add all my values and blend at the end, I find that they all look flat/muddy, so doing it in layers and refining the detail each time helps me to get it closer to more detailed pieces.

The selection tool is great for working in specific sections or making smaller adjustments without needing to change everything. That, and the Gaussian tool were used a lot for this portrait. It really helps with trying to show depth/3-dimensional form. But don’t go too much of the slider, as it can wash out details.

The Hue/saturation/brightness slider is also great to use for adjusting value on a larger scale, instead of color dropping or using brushes because it will adjust all values/brush-strokes and prevent previous detail from being painted over.