Oh yes...very nice...great pose and background

wow! this image and the "violet" version are both amazing and very well done, some more contrast on the girl in the foreground might have been better as she does not have quite enough presence. In all other ways however this is fantastic, from the pose and composition to the realistic shape and skin as well as the outfit...the next time, try to experiment with various settings for contrast and saturation and do not be afraid to take it to extremes just to see what it will look like, it can be a good way to get new ideas or even simply see when something is too much and you have to reduce it:)

I think that possibly one of the reasons she doesn't stand out enough is the white ring behind her (which I see surrounds the iris of the eye)pushes the background forward and she is quite dark which seems to push her back. I'm not exactly sure if you could have made more contrast on the girl in front... I mean technically you could with dodging and burning...as you say you already used contrast adjustments and you can see where you sharpened...but actually she seems to have alot of dark and light and definition on her anyway. You could always have her silhouetted more...almost making her colour absorbed by the fire of the background eye...that could be dramatic...or tone down the intensity of the background eye which would bring her forward. This piece I think would be a great one for Don Hosho to comment on actually...he's good at this sort of picture. I'll pass him the link if he doesn't see it anyway.

The point is: the contrast between light areas and shade areas.. as long as there is more contrast in background than in front, the background will pop out more than the front..

In fantasy art may be this painting is close to what You are trying to achieve:
http://www.myfreewallpapers.net/fantasy/wallpapers/frank-frazetta-death-dealer-02.jpg

note how the background in that example is busy - yes it is - but not having all the same contrast between light and shades..

and my suggestion is: Why d u need to add contrast, why don't u make the contrast less in the background?
make sure the background is in a different layer than the model in front and .. try several techniques:

ctrl- u / make the saturation a less bit.
guession blur / blur the background a little.
brightness contrast/ make the contrast less a bit.

then make a copied merged layer image from the original: and use ctrl-m
( curves )to fix the general colore tunes.

wow *_____*