Meta, why don't ya just crop the eyes on to the HD rip and just resize, and color in a bit of the pixels with ink dropper copy. might help with the lifeless effect.
Also good job on your textures, there looking good so far. Keep up the good work. It will become a breeze as you play with the tools you have. Found a tool in gimp the other day that fills in a whole traced area with a choice of color, keeping shadows,textures,shades,etc. Makes making hair colors,eye colors, skin, etc a breeze.
trick how here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2514BOmKA0U