Class Assignment: Charcoal Self-Portrait

My assignment is due in two days.  Fortunately, I had the foresight to take a day off to give myself plenty of "last minute" time to complete my assignment.  Here's how my work progressed today:

After 1 hour, I had my facial features roughly laid out:

But something wasn't right with the eyes, nose and mouth.  I could see "me" in this drawing, but something wasn't quite right. 

6 hours later...it was me!!  Well, sorta.  Hey, with a facelift I could resemble this drawing...at least the mouth was more like mine.

Time to recheck my proportions, positioning, etc.  My nose isn't that long and thin and, after a little analysis, I realized that the eyes weren't quite right either.  The one of the left (my right eye...I'm looking at a mirror image) was proportioned differently from the one on the right (my left eye).  There is a slight difference between my eyes for real, but it isn't like this:

I realize what's wrong with the drawing...I resemble a Siamese cat.  I'm more like a Tabby ; )

Eye tweak 1 - I made the eye on the left closer to the width of the one on the right as well as increasing the height near the middle:

 

 

Eye tweak 2 - line refinement:

 

 

After 7 hours, I have tweaked the eyes and fixed my nose, this is where I stopped for the day:

 

 

 

It looks a lot more like me, but I still see that something isn't right.  I need to recheck the eyes again.

 

After taking a break and asking others what they see, I realize that the cheek on the right looks too concave.  That side of my face is shadowed, but I need to figure out how to indicate shadow without caving the cheek in.  I also realize that I need to remove the "apple" of my other cheek.  It was more appropriate earlier when I first started drawing with my mouth in a smile.  It looks too youthful.  Looking at the photo above, I realize that I need to revisit the neck area too.  It looks like I'm wearing a turtle neck...if only I were : )

 

One other thing I need to work on is the my hair.  After looking at these pictures, the hair looked pretty good at one point, but by the time I stopped, it looked terrible (boxy and fraid on the ends).  I have curly hair and I'm not sure how to render that.  I'll play around with it a little more tomorrow.