Okay, enough waiting around...I shall finally write this! I must say, I'm disappointed with the amount of attention this has been getting. I truly believe that it is one of your best works yet, and deserves a lot of feedback. Which is what motivated me to do this.

so here we go.

First of all, I just want to let you know that this entire image is beautiful. The kind of beautiful that makes the viewer stop awhile to take in all the details.
What I take from this piece is a sense of growth, maturation, and inspiration. The colour scheme really adds to the overall feel of the image...the child, on the outside, resonates with a cold sort of beauty, with her solemn look and blue/grey colour pallet. However, as we can see on the inside, there is light, warmth, and a glowing beauty. The tree sprouting from her head is a very powerful symbol, and puts across (what I find to be) the main message of this piece perfectly. To me it represents the child breaking out of her shell, becoming inspired and growing up mentally. Basically, the kid's having a sort of revelation. The fact that this is an older youth adds to this feeling.
The anatomy of the face is amazing. The tone and shading is phenomenally done. It just looks so natural. The eye almost looks real, not just the iris and such, but even the shape of it and the eyelashes.
The one thing that kind of stuck out was the braid, very well done, but it seems to come out of nowhere. Perhaps if you showed us some hair ar the top of the head, it would seem to belong more. Also, I notice that you put and eye on the left side of the face that is partially hidden by the colourful lines. The thing is, the eye is not very noticeable, and perhaps rearranging the lines near the bottom of the face could give it more room to be seen?
The butterflies really add a lighter feeling to the picture, it contrasts the "sad" colours well. It gives me a sense of childhood innocence and magic...mainly because it reminds me of how we spent much of our time as kids. And the fact that these are near the bottom of the image, along with the braid, seems to represent moving past childhood. Or maybe I'm over-thinking it.
It's hard to find anything that truly needs improvement. I can tell that this is quite a personal piece for you, and I was there to see how much effort you put into it. Beautiful design, with wonderful use of colour, light and shading. All in all this is a beautiful, intriguing piece, and is also one of my favourites from you. I compare this piece to ones from the past, and It's amazing how much you've improved within a year.