'Starting big=better for me. More of a challenge where I can apply myself and commit to something I want done.'
Nonononononono. Please never say that. It's good to go up in steps, there's no exception. I've been seeing your art for a pretty long time already and the one thing I always thought was that you always tackle too big a project and you seem to ignore your mistakes since you have a lot of other stuff to complete. From what I have seen, this lack of will to do smaller things have caused you to fail in being able to fully understand art in theory.
From what I see, I can say that you don't put enough thought in your composition. This seems to be your biggest downfall. Composition itself is very hard to understand as well. So I can't teach you anything (it's self learnt).
'Im still learning PhotoShop. Highlights and shadows make me cringe. Im an infant on those things.'
Learn this in pencil first before you do it in PS. When you don't understand something, it's best that you do it in the medium that you're most confident with. If you can't do it in photoshop yet, you don't understand it enough.
'I dont abuse the dodge/burn tool...I neglect it. I grew up with traditional, so the only things I really like using are the different colors, blur (Smudging with a Kleenex), highlight (Picking out with an eraser), and the gradients. '
You have to go out of your comfort zone to master new things. If you wanna smudge things up, use the smudge tool. I wouldn't advise using the smudge tool either. It's in poor taste if you don't know how to use it like a pro (I don't even know how to use it xD).
I'm not against you or anything, I just think your approach to learning is poor and you may end up misleading yourself. Please try to listen to crtis. You may think you know all your flaws but really, nobody does. I don't. Second opinions tend to be less biased as you have been looking at your piece for a long time, you tend to not be able to find all your flaws in the end. A different person will be able to judge the drawing from first glance, seeing what looks funny.