I visit Scott's website often, as his demos are so instructive, and I can't find enough good things to say about his painting style. I visited his site again this morning, and saw that he'd added a new demo.
In this demo, the face started out almost as a general egg shape that was sculpted into a portrait. I haven't read all the text yet, because I wanted to share it with y'all before I run off to work.
Give it a look:
http://www.scottburdick.com/demoBrittany.htm