As far as quality goes, those photos are better quality than many of the photos that I take – the composition and framing is top notch! The lighting is also quite good considering the situation, and I think you made the right choice in under-exposing to avoid blown-out highlights.
The quality issue that I am noticing is a sharpness issue. It does not look out of focus, and it is not motion blur. I think it’s a combination of lens quality and de-noising. I assume you shot in RAW.
De-noising, which is necessary when brightening dark photos, also makes the picture less sharp. Try playing with the different noise removal tool sliders some, in conjunction with the sharpening, equaliser, and/or clarity tools. I personally would be fine with a bit more noise if it makes the photo sharper.
For future reference, f/10 is a bit high for the Nikon 18-55 kit lens – from my experience with the version II of that lens it performs best around f/5.6 or f/8 and between 18mm and 28mm.
If you are considering buying another lens, I would recommend the 50mm af-s 1.8. I ended up selling my kit lens for about the same price as a used 50mm 1.8 prime. Both the 35 af-s 1.8 and the 50mm af-s 1.8 are much sharper than the kit lens, but they are both about 150US$ used, and you lose the advantages of having a zoom lens and you miss out on everything wider than 35mm, and though you almost never need that for portraits you might sometimes want it for other things.
I agree with James that some of the issues could have been averted with a just a bit of fill flash, as you would not have needed to rely so heavily on the editing software. For a flash, I use the TN560-III (41US$ used at B&H) and the YN560-TX controller (37US$ for the updated YN560-TX II) so that I can use it off-camera. I find it has plenty of power for 90% of what I do. It doesn’t have TTL, so the power must be adjusted manually. Total cost: 78USD + tax & shipping. You could also try with a 1000w work light, but that may not be bright enough.
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