Portrait for SeaCAD Technologies

No highlights in his eyes, as seen in the photo provided.
Layman will usually associate highlights in the eyes with cheerful, bright and nice eyes.
The challenge here was to achieve this mood, through his smile and expression etc.
It used to be a challenge to me when I started drawing portraits in my early days.
However, over the years of drawing, I focus on the overall feel, instead of the eyes alone.
My clients always said that once we get the eyes correct, it will look like that person.

I don't think so, at all. You can get the eyes right. But if the nose, smiles, teeth etc don't look alike, and worse - if the proportion was out, everything will be wrong. No matter how much effort you put in the shading etc, you are just wasting your time. The starting point must be right. The framework must be correct. How to get the proportion right? This concerns with the vertical and horizontal proportions, and the relationships between all the features. It may sound difficult, but I can tell you all these in a few minutes. How you can do right, require lots of practice. If you don't realise this, it will take you years of struggling with the proportions, and may not get it right.

I realised this when I was doing those A1 size airbrush portraits. How to sketch out the portraits from the small photos onto the huge drawing paper? I was quite excited when I found out the relationship between them, and these were not found from those art books. At least, I have not come across them yet. Everything looks so easy since then. Then, I found out that the next (higher) level of challenge was to get the expression, and (then) mood of the subject right. If you can't achieve that, your drawing will never be able to convey the message the subject was trying to project. This requires lots of drawing experience (practice). The more you draw, the better you are, as I always believe this - Skill comes from Repetition! I am still working hard on that in every of my drawings. There isn't an end. Just keep drawing - that's what I always tell those people interested in drawings. No shortcut.