Special request

[VtBlues]

The one thing you might try. Close crop on the head and a little of the shoulders so it doesn't look like a floating head. Use some kind of edge finder to eliminate the background. same idea (edge finder) with the shoulders and dress but instead of eliminating change the color to a shade of grey closer to the tones of the face. Do a little smoothing and a bit of blur and then set a shallow height maybe only 25-35 range. Might work or at least get you closer. Or see if you can get a more carvable pic to start from.