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I like using a photo as its own brush image because you end up with more consistent colors. Depending on the brush you use, you can sometimes see the face in the paint, say if you were using a round brush. Theirs is not always what you want but can be interesting. I do like to pay attention to the eyes, it can be the main reason people like an image, regardless of what else is in it!

I opened the image in Metabrush. In Paint mode, on a new layer, I painted over her, using herself as Brush image, and painting with a using a large, medium opacity Doodle 22/71 brush. In brush settings, I used maximum spacing, maximum position variance, medium rotation variance, and no structure or shadow.

Q: Can you explain "painting using a large medium capacity Doddle 22/71 brush..."? I couldn't figure that out. Is that why my Metabrush design looks flat and yours looks more 3-D?

A: Use a larger brush. I see that your brush is medium opacity, and that is good, because they do in fact have a 3D look in that you can see through to layers of them. But because they are so small, it is hard to notice that unless you zoom in. I don't pay a lot of attention to the brush dynamics, but you might also increase the size dynamics quite a bit. Then with your medium opacity large brush, keep brushing over and over the area you want to cover with the brush strokes. As you can see, I generally cover most of the canvas and then use iColorama to blend back whatever I need from the original. You could also use the eraser in Metabrush for that. But iColorama gives you more control over blending, and especially, different blending modes. So I tend to use iColorama rather than the MB eraser for combining aspects in these compositions. I sometimes also make experimental strokes with different Structure and Shadow settings, and of course different brushes and spacings and sizes. When you are using Paint mode, also be sure to choose a brush image that has lots of open areas to see through, to take maximum advantage of the transparency. One thing to try too is in Metabrush, after you have brushed (I always try to remember to brush on a new layer), turn off any other layers you may have and see whether the Metabrush layer looks 3D. If not, clear it and brush again, maybe with a different brush or brush settings. If your Metabrush layer looks 3D, then it is something else about the image that is interfering. There could be too much else going on in your image for the full impact of the MB strokes to come through. It's good to have at least some of the MB strokes fall over a flat or monotone area of the image, such as a plain background or a broad lit area of a face, and such areas should be large enough to be noticeable.

Why Metabrush?

Metabrush also saves your projects with all their layers intact. So you can go back later and tweak a layer if you want a new version. This is a feature I'm going to try to consciously use more, because sometimes I don't decide until I've finished a piece that I wish I'd skipped a certain step. If I planned it right, rather than go back and repeat a lot of work, I could delete a layer in MB

Joyce Harkin: The other feature I use a lot in metabrush is to paint over an image and turn to lower layer off (empty paint can). This gives a transparent background when exporting as a png which you can then Easily blend onto another image in Icolorama. It's an incredibly handy feature.