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I have a comment about copyright issues. For more comments from readers about the painting itself you might want to post this in the critique section.
From the in-depth reading I have done about art copyright law, National Geographic would have a legitimate case that this painting infringes on their copyright.
The key issue in copyright law is whether a casual viewer (not necessarily an artist or photographer) would feel that this painting was "substantially similar" to the photograph you worked from. I think that, yes, it is.
Fine points that would affect a judge's ruling would be whether the portion of the photo that was copied made up a large percentage of the image area of the resulting painting. The answer is yes, in this case, also.
Another point would be whether the portion of the photo that was copied was central to the concept of the painting. The answer to that point is yes, also. The man is the main image of the painting.
If you ever sell, exhibit or publish this painting, I believe you would be raising a legal red flag, if anyone saw the image who cared about National Geographic's copyright legal rights.
To be on the safe side of copyright law we should only work from our own photos or use others' photos only when we have written permission to use the imagery.
Hope that helps!
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