Crit a self portrait?

[Featheredface]

Since no one seems to be biting on my sketchbook anymore; Could someone give a critique on this self portrait. (No photo reference, all done through the mirror.)

My personal nit pick is that the very low contrast in the flesh makes it look..flat.

But feel free to rip it apart.

[Chris Sanders]

If your worried about your handling of contrast i would take a step back and worry about just nailing your values, honestly i your not doing your self any favors by adding colours to the mix. If it looks good in black and white it'll look good in colour.

Also look up Bouguereau, one of the all time greatest portrait painters imo. convert some of his paintings to black and white in ps and study them. then when you have that down he paints flesh about as well as anyone else aswell. BUT! get your values working first, just forget colour for like 6 months.

Here's a quick over paint of how you could add interest and volume to the face. make sure your lighting isn't flat on otherwise it'll flatten out the form. Left to right, top to bottom but never right out in front.

Peace

[Hexokinase]

It's not bad. Keep doing more.

Don't be afraid to switch to a softer brush when you need soft/lost edges (the cheek is especially culprit).

You're doing yourself no favors by omitting the hair. Include everything. You need to practice painting the face with the skull in mind.

Use strong directional light sources at first. Makes your job easier, makes things read better.

Last I checked, your eyes stay focused on you when looking in a mirror. The eyes you've painted are not looking directly at me. This means you either changed the direction of the eyes yourself, or you're not paying close enough attention. In either case: don't do that.

[Featheredface]

-Chris Sanders:

Thank you for that. And yeah, Bouguereau is one of my favourite painters out there. Can't believe I didn't think of doing so. Thanks for the paint over, too. I thought I had taken this painting pretty far, but you blew my mind. Suppose I will have to do value studies more than I do. Thanks again.

-Hexokinase:
Thank you for crit. Very true. And, yeah, I tried but I couldn't seem to nail the eye's focus, so I gave up...Bah! Tsk tsk.

Anywho, thank you.

[mistersomes]

I'd like to add a bit more, if that's alright. You need to understand and see the planes of the face so it doesn't look flat.
If you can indicate and render this planes well, it will read much better. Focus on your values! Try doing studies of skulls and Loomis heads, it will help you a lot.

[Danilo]

http://gyazo.com/1a824ca4cb35de77ceb0be4670ea1f00

[Featheredface]

Second go at it. This time it's a little more rough. Crits/opinions/suggestions?

[Chris Sanders]

Try and get a similar photo up if you can so we can see your proportions. I also think you need to probably have a under drawing as your structure is a little wonky.

[Featheredface]

I'm actually not very comfortable with the idea of showing even a small forum like this, a photo of myself, even if to help identify proportions/features, etc...Sorry if this is a detrimental. :/

And, I didn't do an skeleton under-sketch first on the second one, I will include it for the third portrait.

[Chris Sanders]

I would honestly say i doubt any one would care, I'm pretty sure this place isn't stalker avenue but whatever. I can respect that you don't trust the internet, however If you use social networking there's already going to be images out there already. But fair enough. I would suggest then going here - http://www.lovecastle.org/draw/ - clicking on male and female heads only and trying to get the structure down. Observing reality is the best but for structure and crit this is pretty damn useful and you can post them side by side on here for the best possible feedback. Hope that helps buddeh.