I think it is looking pretty good but you need to make the dark areas little bit more darker.

Hi @persona937, I think you may be running into issues with seeing core shadows, cast shadows, etc. because of the reference photo you've chosen. When trying to learn these principles, it's best to find reference for a direct light source because it casts hard shadows and creates nice bounce light. Being able to see those hard shadows allows you to identify a cast shadow right away, and the bounce light will create a core shadow. The image you've uploaded seems to be taken under an ambient light source. This softens your cast shadows, and minimizes the amount of bounce light, which essentially gets rid of all visible core shadows. This is what's making it so hard to identify, so don't be too hard on yourself. I tried my best to map out the shadow areas in my images below. The area in blue shows ALL shadows (cast shadows and form shadows). The area in red shows where there are cast shadows. The area in yellow shows where there are form shadows (these areas are in shadow because they are turning away from the light, not because there is a shadow being cast on them). As mentioned before, I didn't include a map for the core shadow because you can't really see them under ambient light. My suggestion when trying to do this exercise would be to find reference with direct light. Try to find portraits of people shot outdoors in daylight. If you're unsure, look at the image to see if you can find any hard shadows. Those hard shadows are a good indication of an image being shot in direct light. As for your study, like ailbhe mentioned, the sclera is mostly in shadow (this is because of the cast shadow either from the eyelid or from the brow ridge. Most areas that aren't under cast shadow would create a form shadow) so you want to darken the sclera in your drawing study. Additionally, your shadows should be much darker. Try using a value 7 or 8 for the time being, just so that you can get a clear separation between what's in light and what's in shadow. Hope this helps! Let me know if I can clear anything up for you

My quick tip for eyes is that the sclera- the white of the eye, is always always darker than you think. convert your ref to grayscale and you'll see what I mean. Your shading looks pretty solid apart from that! just darken the sclera and add a shadow coming from the top lid :)

Hi persona, it works like any other part of the body, you have to first identify the main shapes, decide how many shades to use and keep it simple. Here the light is artificial and comes from the top right. Being direct and artificial you will have very clear distinctions between light and shadow. Since this is only a detail, the main shapes are few: the eye can be schematised as a sphere, but the iris is like a small saucer-shaped hollow, in which the shadow will be inverted from that of the sphere (imagine a ball of ice cream from which you have removed a small portion with a teaspoon. That is approximately the shape). The eyebrow overhangs the eye as if it were a curved canopy that connects with the nose, then casts its shadow on the eyeball. I attach a rushy ugly scribble from which I hope you can see what I mean.