I am struggling with a portrait and the ear placement, any help is appreciated. In this reference, the head is every so slightly tilted (top tilted away from viewer), also it looks as if the camera is looking up at the face. I may be wrong there. I tried to place the oval correctly but I face an issue where the ear never fits into the lower far corner of the oval, which is the usual placement. I draw a line from the top of the ear to the right eyebrow to get the center ellipse line and then draw in the perpendicular one (in perspective) but either the oval becomes too large, the 'thirds' do not quite match the reference or, most commonly, the ear is quite off. It portrudes A LOT from the face and I cannot fit it into the oval correctly. Now, from the top of ear to the right eyebrow MIGHT be my mistake since this guy is not really looking up. From the course I remember the horizontal oval line should only go up or down if the person is looking up or down. But trying to have a straight horizonal line for the oval does not work AT ALL. I am honestly at a loss here, why there is a line going UP from top of ear to eyebrow, I have no idea. Might be the camera position? If someone could draw the loomis circle and oval (with the guide lines) in correctly it would help me a lot I think. Getting the off-center camera, head tilt and turned head all aligned correctly in perspective might just be too much for my skill at the moment. Thanks!

I noticed that Olivia Munn is actually tilting her head a bit, you can easily detect that by checking her 2 eyebrows which are not on the same level. Her head is tilted slightly to the right. By the logic thus far described in the course, this should mean the 'oval' rests not perfectly in the middle but a little lower. Correct? It also means all 'thirds' lines are not truly horizontal for her. Is it just me making some mental mistake or am I right?

I started drawing directly on tablet 'Huion Kamvas Pro 16' which has 15'' display, on-screen drawing, no parallax, I'm quite happy with it. It's also reasonably priced. If you want to go wild there are tablets up to 24'' or more out there, also mobile drawing computers (do not need PC/laptop connection) but those are really expensive in comparison. (e. g. MobileStudio Pro series from Wacom) Price was ~400 € (convert to your currency) including pen of course. A tablet does by the way not force you in any way to utilize any 'digital only' features. You can stick to as close to traditional art as you like, helped by the right software choice. Some focus very much on a realistic, traditional approach while others embrace digital-only means full-heartedly.