Hi Holly,
The character lighting much better. Just compare it with your previous post, and see how much it has improved! It's great to see your progression. Hopefully I can give you a few pointers. I also want to write a bit of technical information, mostly on shadows and their settings, which can be useful for everyone, as I know some people are in the dark about this subject and I would have appreciated it when I started out. I will post it separately after this post, otherwise your post will be too long :)
It's best not to work at your lighting too much without shadows on as it is not giving you an accurate portrayal of the final image, and making it harder for you to judge. You currently have two sets of shadows that I can see. To imitate a sun lit scene you really should only have one shadow, from the key, like your reference. Blurring shadows in comp is not an option, you would be blurring the surfaces as well, but you only want to blur the shadow. Realistic sunlight has shadows that are sharp at the source of the object casting the shadow, that get more blurred the further away the shadow gets, although its over quite some distance (look at tree shadows, and observe how we don't really notice when we are under a cloud shadows because the shadow edges are so soft as the clouds are far away). You will only need a tiny amount of shadow blur, as you are not dealing with large scale objects, so it should be quite simple to do and it will add that softness your reference displays.
[Insert extract on shadows here]
I think you are nearly there with your lighting, but would like to see a bit more contrast. The warmth, intensity and direction of your key light is not really coming across as you have too much fill evening it out. Your skin looks much better, but still needs a bit more light on it and the sweater should not be burning out, so you need to work on the balance in your shading a little (does the sweater have any specular in it? If it does I would take it out) . I think that you can go stronger with the colours of your lights, you might be surprised with how dark and saturated you can go. From what you have shown me, I think you only really need two lights, for your main rig. See the image I created from your individual light images you posted last time. All I did was change the colour and intensities of your two lights and then added them on top of each other. I also painted in some shadows on your key light, as that really makes a difference. Remember that what is not lit by the key light, is lit by the fill light, so your shadows are 'fill' lit. Later on when you are happy with the main lighting, you would benefit from a few localised bounce lights for areas where the white sweater would be reflecting light around, and perhaps a light for her teeth. Consider using a light that only emits specular, for areas such as the legs.
The eyes do look better, they are glowing in the sunlight a bit, so possibly think about lighting them separately using a key light that is less intense (using light linking) or adjusting the shading.
Your occlusion pass does not look quite right to me. It is as if it has a facing ratio image combined with it? Or is it reflection occlusion instead of ambient occlusion? Either way, see the image below, this is more what it should look like. You want to adjust the settings (max distance, samples) so that it is less spread but not crunched (when the image looks compressed). This should fix the problems you are having as the occlusion should not be affecting the sweater other than in the areas of contact like under the arms.
The life ring would look better lit like the character. Unfortunately the reference you are looking at it all rim lit, it makes no logical sense to use that lighting unless you are planning on changing the character lighting to match. I think she will stand out enough for them to not look joined together. I am still not sure about the position of the life ring, as it is not cut off by her enough to have an impact, and its not cut off by the frame either. As for your composition, look at the lines of your pose compared with the Elvgren pose, and see if you can frame it better to get the same intimate feel.
Just tracking the camera should be fine, it would only really be a problem if you are rotating around the model, as you are lighting it from one view only.
Its always useful to have extra passes for defining the skin, and clothes, so that you can make last minute adjustments in comp. Make a new pass, assign constant shaders in red green and blue, to different body parts. Even if you don't use them in the end, its good to have options.
Good luck finishing off, feel free to make ask any questions. I am excited about seeing everyones updates.
Tessa
PS hope these images work, I have done some investigating.
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