Hello everyone! I've been busy recently and haven't been able participate in the community much but I have been lurking. I'll try to be more involved.

Yet another portrait. I had been working and re-working this thing a few hours a week for the last few months. I decided to challenge myself to draw as realistic a character as possible without ever looking at any references. I think I improved a lot over the course of drawing this, as you can see in this process gif:

https://i.imgur.com/56bV7lp.gifv

C&C very welcome. Let me know what I can do to be better.

EDIT: bumped up the contrast