Hi, have you ever noticed that your friend is nothing more than a simple amalgamation of shapes? I made a couple graphics for you to look at. I hope they help you. Now you don't have to literally take the time to draw these shapes. but I just thought it would help you get an idea of the shapes you should be thinking about as you're drawing. I also did a breakdown of the ears and nose for you

I hope that this is helpful.

As many comments below suggest, check proportions and correlated lines. Check the shape of the negative space. Make a smaller sketch just to feel the shape and relationship between different planes and shapes… if you don’t mind, here’s my draw over. One of the things is that the lower jaw is relaxed and lowers, so it will change some angles, position of the lower leap, wrinkles. Look at the triangle of eyes and the nose saddle. I usually draw something like that, than analyze where I need corrections and go from there. Good job!

I also struggle with capturing a person's likeness... Especially if it is someone I know. (Which can make you feel really dumb since you've known and seen this person for so long!) What typically helps me when looking at the proportions of a figure is to look at one thing's relation to another. For example, look at your friend's left eye(her left). Draw a straight line from the corner of the eye down to where her neck starts. In your sketch, he neck starts directly below the start of her left brow. I hope this kinda trick helps! It's a little tedious to get into the habit of looking at limbs or facial features in relation to one another so don't feel bad if you have to remind yourself to look. Even though I know this trick, I still have to remind myself a lot of the time too. (Hope your friend has an awesome birthday!)

I don’t know if this will help, I will just mention what I see, I may be wrong. I think the far eye is too big. I think the bridge of the nose is off by a bit. I think the chin is sticking out too far. I think the far cheek under the nose is too big. They all look like they are off by very small amounts but it is definitely affecting your likeness. Also, she is young and the lines in her face are really aging her. I would suggest remove the ones you can and soften the others, for example I would soften the line going from the nose to the mouth. Also, I think the hair line across her forehead is off. Hope this helps.🙂

One thing that seems off compared to the picture are her eyes. The eye on the right looks a bit far apart from the other or lopsided. You should redraw her eye a little further up. Besides that I think the side of her nostril could be smaller. I hope my advice helps!

Hello, what I will tell you... has two parts, first at all i understand that you want to exercise in the portrait and at the same time make a nice gift to your friend,.... but I think that for the moment you should separate the two goals, because maybe you are rushing things, working against the clock, my advice in this case would be (just to be effective and arrive with the gift on time), solve it by tracing the photo on a light table ... (photo printing) and make a beautiful and stylized line art, with textures and spots, without shading in this case, because the photograph you have taken is not the best reference for shading, in parallel and without the pressure of time, continue with your learning process in measurements and block in your drawings, I hope I have been of some help,...keep progressing (and sorry for my english)

Flip the photography or use a mirror and that might help you to see it what it needs. Slightly tilted heads are a pain.

Proportions. The space between the eyes in the drawing are too far apart, the lips are smaller in the picture. You could draw the nose a little smaller. when I make portraits I start off with the big basic shapes first using loomis method to place out everything really basic. When I feel like everything is in the right place I start with the details, shaping the features etc.