Nice project, and I’ve been wondering about those new particles that are coming out. I think I’ve found a bug in the current texture rendering, but was unwilling to try a pre-release build.
See http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1010100#post1010100 for the issues i’ve been having, and a few pics of my first solo model (made without reference to tutorials). I launched into this project soon after following the face and video tutorials that I mention below…
Looking at the image with the textured eyeball, the mesh does look a bit dense, but in the image in face select mode, it looks ok…
I’ve only been using Blender for about a month, but I’ve found that the face tutorial at the bottom of this page: http://blenderartists.org/cms/index.php?id=67 has taught me a hell of a lot. It’s an 80Mb video tutorial, but if you have decent bandwidth, a bit of time to wait, or can download overnight, then it would be well worth it to see how the author deals with the nose and eyes. (click on the image of the face right at the bottom for the link to the file)
Best of luck to you 