Are you using a graphics tablet? I don't really know anything about the proper technique for those, but I have found that if you manage to separate things out onto layers in the right way, there's usually some digital trick to get the effect you want. Dupilcating a layer and then blurring the lower version of it sometimes seems to smooth things out.



In any case though, this looks really good overall. There's nothing about it being different that I'd take for being worse.