Heat strokes ain't fun. Stay hydrated folks. Especially when you are a submarine creature with tentacles.
Well, first things first. Please don't put me on a pedestal. My work isn't even close to deserving it. Also, I don't want to be perceived as mean or such. As a non-native speaker, I'm just forced to use shorter sentences and try to avoid purple prose to get my point across.
I don't have fun being mean. I have fun seeing you and others grow.
But now off to your piece.
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Let's start with the lighting. The teal pointers show a very harsh shadow that is a stark contrast to the rest of the image. If that is intentional you should emphasize it. But hence your former image is lacking the harshness beneath her breast I believe that it is not intentional. You should soften it to a point where it matches the shadow that is shown by the blue pointer. You could achieve this by increasing the size of the light source that throws this shadow. But keep the "inverse square law of light" in mind, you will have to reduce the intensity of the light accordingly.
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The second image shows all the fields where you have no details as white. Except for her left shoulder, this would have been black but for consistency, I deactivated the showing of overblown highlights.
The main difference between contemporary b/w images and old fashioned ones is the lack of dynamic range in contrast. This means those effects looked ugly on old images and photographers tried to reduce those detailless parts to a minimum where they started to enhance the wanted effects. If you want to emulate old fashioned photos look further down below in the postwork area.
An image that I've done this winter to learn more about old school glamour to show what I mean.
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The pink circles are a nitpick, a few indentions would be nice here. To show that actual flesh is pierced. Depending on the used mesh geometry this couldn't be achieved without exchanging it. That is where the "hide and seek" concept of those kinds of images can be quite handy.
Is that a UV seam I see inside the red circle? Did you use spectral rendering? If so, you can avoid these nasty things by tipping the transmitted light of your skin to a slight off white by setting it to 254. And remove any colourmap or other colour that might be dialled in there.
If it is not spectral rendering, then you have probably more severe problems with the skin and its texture maps there.
No vellus hair? This image screams for it. (Look next paragraph.)
The gloss looks slightly metallic which gives it a synthetic feel to me. Is that intentionally? If so then forget about the vellus hair. If not, try a Geoshell for wetness instead of reflection settings on the skin instead. You are working a b/w so most of your SSS will be lost. So don't waste your time with settings that can't have a positive impact on your image by design.
Postwork is your friend.
It can help you to improve your lighting. Make different renders. One for each light. In postwork, you can bring them together via different blending modes and the opacity of the different layers. Depending on your taste you maybe have to increase or reduce the intensity of the different lights for your renders, to achieve the lighting you want in postwork. But remember, this is just a technique, a tool at your disposal. There are more situations where it is not necessary to use than there are situations where it improves your work drastically.
In postwork is also the time to readjust your contrast. The new style shows how a contemporary contrast curve appears on current systems. The old style shows how an old contrast curve would appear on current systems. I've drawn them by hand and I suck at drawing, so it is not pinpoint accurate. But I assume you get what I try to show here. The contrast curve should be one of the last layers you add to the image.
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And remember that is just the opinion of an old tentacle monster. So take of it only what you want and need.
p.S.: I really should invest in the premium tier of my editor software. 43 deep writing issues, shesh.
