Crackbook

[Samszym]

I think your issue with finding the likeness has to do with drawing the features too quickly. I was taught to render the forms of the head and skull structure first, shading the eyes and mouth as if they were just spheres pressed into the face. when the lighting and form on all the really simplified forms looked alright and the proportions were in place, the drawing would have a likeness without having even drawn the eyes or lips or nose at all. Likeness comes form the skull structure and getting the forms accurate, not from getting all the little idiosyncrasies of the features copied exactly. Once you've got the likeness and the lit form down it's time to start painting in the features, but if you try drawing those first getting a likeness is super hard.
And when doing features make sure to build them up at the same time, so draw a lid on one eye and a lid on the other, then the other lid on the first then the other lid on the second. Totally finishing one eye and then moving on to the other eye will make it nearly impossible to match.
good luck, really nice work!!!!