You're on the right track, there's a soft and sort of... "smoky" quality to this that is very appealing. The hair in particular is very nice, it reads as a different surface / texture than the rest of the face. The "solidness" of the head is also pretty convincing, this has the appearance of depth and volume which is something I always struggle with. Love the features as well, you packed a ton of detail into the eyes, lips, and nose and they look great. The proportions might be a little off, but that's not your focus and you got the essential bits right. Looking at your reference, I think the biggest issue for me is the lack of a soft edge between the side of the face in shadow and the side in light. Not to say some hard edges aren't warranted, just that you need to be selective of where you use hard edges based on the geometry of the skull. For instance, I would give the cheeks a softer edge and maybe keep some of the hard edge around the jaw. Value is light, and light reveals form, so value studies really test your knowledge of your subject as a 3D object. Doing a face is especially unforgiving in that regard. I think referencing the Asaro Head would be really helpful here for figuring how the light is interacting with the face. Hope that helps! Good luck on your art journey.

Hi there Clay! I think this portrait look very beautiful with clean and smooth shapes, I can see you spent a lot of time on it! Some tiny details then it comes to value in comparison to the reference photo is that the Philtrum (the little cleft between the nose and mouth) could be a bit darker. (Unless that was one of the part you chose to stylize of course) and you could also make the white of the eye a lighter value then they are now to. You really captured the airy volume of the hair from the reference, that looks great! To me the picture would look more balanced if the hair was of similar lengths on both sides though, so if it were me I would make either the right side of the hair longer or the left shorter. I like the texture of it to, it looks like actual hair without being to overworked. You did really good work with it!

This is a really great drawing! I think you have captured part of the likeness which is really hard! I wouldn't worry about missing out the hands, although I think potentially adding more of the chest and shoulder at the bottom would balance the picture out a little better. I think it would be even better if you darkened the side of the face that's in shadow. The reflected light on the left side of the picture I think is too bright and draws my attention, so keep it lighter than the rest, but darken the whole of that side I reckon. Well done for finishing a picture though - so hard to do!

I think you captured most of her features quite well! One observation is that in your portrait, it is a little difficult to tell the direction of her gaze, I think due to the placement of the specular highlights over her pupils, which are also a little smaller than in the reference. Some advice I've heard that I use in my own work is to wait to place any details like specular highlights until the rest of the portrait is fully rendered (if at all), to help ensure that elements like the gaze direction read properly.