Character art process

Half-way through cleaning up a character portrait. 

My process:

1. Trace over and refine the original line art using Wacom tablet
2. Divide image into various areas (skin, hair, eyes, clothes...). Each area resides on it's own layer and is painted a solid grayscale color.
3. Add lighting/shading and highlights
4. Add color and textures
5. Touch up, corrections and add effects

The above screenshot is work in progress after several hours of step 1-3

When it comes to 2D art, I'm really out of practice (in truth, I never really practiced enough since I focused on 3D in the past).

Somehow, despite the refined version taking many hours longer to do compared to the original, I always tend to prefer the rough sketches. 

Something feels missing and I definitely need more practice to improve my efficiency.