I'm sure you will figure something out headwax. Your images look far less CG than most, so I think you are going in the right direction.

I came across an application a while back that generates brushstrokes from an image based on user input at different places on the image, rather than applying a "canned" effect to the entire image: 
http://www.gertrudisgraphics.com/help/gmx-photopainter-styles

I don't think that making your work look more like paintings is the answer. What interested me about this application is the kind of control it allows.

The Non-Photorealistc renderer in Carrara, while it does have quite a few parameters, is applying those to the entire image, so you can't say hey can you do a bit more or less of an effect on this face (or eye or nose or whatever)