The steps you take from now on are really up to your taste.
Some of the tecniques you can use are:
Underpainting (fondo): pick up a dark colour (which color depends on the image, to paint skin you can use greens, blues and earth colors) and paint the image with it, you will have a monochromatic version of the image apply colors to. This is the most old and most efficient way I know to paint, cause this way you can concentrate on value and think about color at a later stage (doing it digitally is easier 'cause you donāt have to match the final color values with that of the underpainting). You actually paint the picture two times.
Priming (Imprimitura) (well, or sort ofā¦) : you lay on the canvas the main colors in the scene. Just squint your eyes and look at the main masses, lay down the masses and the colors you see. Itās up to you to decide if you want to average to the darker tones or middle tones. Build the scene by brightening and darkening those middle tones where appropriate. Priming is most useful to give unity to the scene and use glazing.
At the moment I canāt recall any other classical tecnique.
but a few advices are:
Paint in layers. This way you can move things around and apply filters to layers if something goes wrong. You can even erase part of the painting without the annoyance of whatās near/under. When you are happy about your image, flatten it. This will reduce the layer number (they can eat up a lot of memory)
Keep it consistent. Once you choose a method donāt change it.
Zoom in and out periodically,and check things out (proportions, balance, colors) the big picture is most important than details (though usually we get lost in details)
In my opinion we should use all sort of digital trickery we can to achieve the best result.Cheating oneself is stupid, making the most out of the tools we have is wise.
Take a look around the site and find goroās brushes, they can be useful (if you want to learn to use textured brushes). Inside that collection there is one useful brush called linda_fav, you can use it to paint and blend at the same time.
About brushes: the only brush needed is the hard round, everything else can only speed up your work, but as a rule of thumb if you know how to do things with that brush anything is good.
Visit the speed paint thread frequently, there is a lot to learn about simplifying there!!! Check out matās speed paints, goroās, binās, zhuzhuās, zed yang etcā¦
wellā¦thereās a lot to say butā¦
the most important thing isā¦never give up! 
(look whoās talkingā¦heheh)
Welcome on board!!!
I think youāve got a good start, but if you wanted to choose a figure from a previous OFDW, and post your work here along with the group, I think thatās great! 
