thanks, i actually used all sort of techniques...
Some portraits with harder expressions i used a horizontal oval brush, on some i used the PS standard round brush at 25% spacing. and various other brushes from various artists. It was all rather frantic, since i didn't have a lot of time to finish, so it was a case of whatever worked. i also experimented with nebezial's technique (Garbo portrait).
But as i said, i didn't have time to focus on a technique to improve on.
I'm usually rather bad at portraits, so this relative success was a surprise to me
Ehm... i hope that sorta answered your question. The answer is that i have no idea what i'm doing
If you want a hint for portraits, i would go with the 3d-construction way (spheres and oval shapes). Seems like a good idea to me and is what i try to do for studies.