Sharpening is not bad. Oversharpening is. Im not really familiar with Photoshop on technical levels, since Im mainly the user of Paint Shop Pro, but PSP has regular sharpening and a stronger one. Sharpening should be added to a level where you can see slight "strength" on a smoothed surface. You can test it by pasting a smaller layer on top of a larger one, which is a crop of the one that is used below. Aka both look the same when together. Then using sharpening on the top layer, you should see the edges of the top layer visible. Good sharpening for a texture of that size is a level when you can barely notice the edges.
Skin is a strange thing, when too smooth, it looks plastic, if oversharpened it looks sick or just plain wrong. The right level is just above the plastic one. When working together with slight brightness/contrast, it can achieve good results.
Heres an example of a first-brushed then texture-detailed texture, left side is not sharpened and right side is. You cant tell the difference at first glance, but it can be felt that it is there, and it works better. Add just slight sharpening for your Wade and it looks close-perfect.
Hope this helps you
