I've been doing a bit more practising... what do you think?

What I'm having most difficulty with is getting the actual head shape right. It either comes out too wide or too narrow, too long or too stout. As you can see above! I dunno what happened the last times I drew, because I got the head shapes pretty accurate back then, but lately, I dunno. Anyways, next picture:

Again, something looks wrong there... I thought I might as well give her a total makeover since she looks nothing like the picture I was copying!! Head came out too big that time, yes?

Who else? How about... Sweet Baby James again?

Not bad... but still the perspective is wrong (he is supposed to be looking down-right), and the features aren't as good a likeness as they could be. Let me try again.

Ah, yeah! That's better!! The hairline is a bit wrong still but the face is okay now.

Okay what's next?

It's Gary! I don't know who he is. It's still not a perfect likeness. I thought I might as well have another go...

... and hey presto!!

Yeah! That's what I'm talking about! It looks just like him now!

Okay, so what accounts for the dramatic leap in skill? You wanna know? You really wanna know?

No, I didn't trace it, I knew you'd say that. Just because I traced a bit (well, a lot) of that Pit picture you accuse me of tracing everything 😛 No actually, the secret is — I used a grid. This is something I've been meaning to do for ages, but never actually got round to doing. But the other day I salvaged some plastic and made myself a couple of grids, so now I can draw everything much more accurately. Is it cheating? Well, an' I don't care if it is, van Gogh used grids all the time and if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for anyone. Right?

See?

Now the thing is, I have to make sure I don't get too dependent on using a grid. Although, it can be used for drawing anything from real life, however if I'm going to draw things from imagination a grid is of no use at all.

So I've been practising a coupla pics total freehand. First up:

It's Medusa's daughter. You didn't know Medusa had a daughter, did you? Neither did I till I drew her. She is called Megara. It suits her. You know Factor 5 haven't a clue when even I can come up with a better concept for a new Kid Icarus game than they can. Huh!

I'll leave you to guess who this one is... considering my drawing skill *ahem* it might take you a while! I'll give you a clue, it's someone from Greek mythology.

PS It's not Hermes.