Hey there, it's great to see that you are trying to indicate the roundness of the various shapes of the face with shading. I would strongly recommend though to not try to overly smudge every single shape you have. It makes your overall picture look muddy. Also, lines where there are hard edges are natural points of interests to the viewer's eye. You don't want to eliminate all of them. Try to mix hard and soft blended edges both. Also, the smudging will eliminate some of the strongest dark values you could have had, once again diluting the contrast and weakening the image overall. In your image I think the light is coming mostly from the top, with a little bit from the left side I think. I tried to fill in more defined shadows and darker values. In terms of describing volumes via shading, you already had some good shades for the nose, or the ones under the eye brow ridge. Do not forget though to indicate a bit of shading for the roundness of the eyeballs. Even if we see only these almond shaped parts of the eyeball, it stays a ball. Therefore the outer corners typically sit deeper in the skull and get less light. And the lower eyelid will wrap around the eyeball, sitting on top of it, and therefore underneath you will typically also get more shadows. The underplane of the nose will also be where you get darker values in most portraits, and under the bottom lip, as there is an indent before the chin protrudes outward again. Some of the strongest shades you'll get under the chin if you have top down lighting. Keep it up, there's already some good thinking involved. o/ | Artwod Feedback