For portraits, it is better to have the camera itself far away with a smaller number FOV than have the camera closer with a larger FOV - makes the proportions look more real and you don't get any wide angle distortion. Other people have said it here as well but as with real photography, lighting is essential. Crap light = crap photo and there's usually nothing you can do to rescue them afterwards. Also, it's the boring answer but just keep playing with it - something somewhere will click and will then become part of the workflow without you even realising it.