I sadly don't have the time for this comp however I couldn't resist to fiddle a bit with it so I quickly ( about an hour ) sculpted an avatar in ZBrush which looks pretty decent.

If anyone uses the standard base mesh ( which wasn't mandatory I believe), I woul advise them to take it straight to ZBrush or Mudbox and reshape the nose, eye and ear area to an avatar like head, don't bother to fiddle with details because then take it in to maya again and work a bit on the loops and load your reference images in mayaand basically alter the overall shape of the head, some distinctive facial features like high cheekbones big or narrow lips fat or shallow face( for the guys doing their girlfriends go for the bestlooking features LOL) and then go back to Zbrush and work and the details textures and so on.

If one or some of you has the time however do a quick basemesh in maya so that you have an avatar like basemesh from the start.

Good luck to all