Here are a few steps of the self portrait I just uploaded. I traced some of the outline from the photo, but most of it is painted by hand without tracing. I used the eyedropper tool to pick the colors, which I don't feel insecure about because I know from experience I'm capable of picking the right color without help from a computer. It took about 3 and a half hours.
Also, I think it looks better flipped this way than it does the way I uploaded it, which is the opposite.