Strange, I didn't use any dry brushes at all, only soft PS airbrushes. Of course, the original image size was 3800x4500, so using a relatively small (50 px or so) brush would likely make smooth edges quite sharp on a small resolution like this.

And yes, it was good criticism. Oh, and a reference photo was used, no painting over. That's stupid.

"Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica and is widely regarded as the most important innovator in scientific and technical computing today." - Stephen Wolfram