Yeah i get that most of the times, artists mostly interpret what they see and the best way to get away with originality is to see a lot and have as many influences as possible
It's a mixture of photographic textures as well a custom brush for the skin. I don't use that one anymore though, I might have posted where I got it somewhere here in the comments though.
probably subliminal influence of well established theme.
what brushes did you use for the colours?
Haha I'm not really sure. But this could have just as easily been done in CS 1.