Muhammad: dude, you are a hard task master
Do you comment at CA.org, by any chance?
Steven: You are way too kind, thank you.
Seriously, though - thank you both. These are great comments and have given me a lot to think about. The ears and the electric blue lick of hair have been annoying me about this drawing for a while. I need to work more on drawing ears so that they are better integrated into the structure of the head, rather than plonked on the sides as I often tend to do. That said, I think I would have worked more on those areas if we hadn't been called for dinner when we had (excuses, excuses). I hadn't noticed the issue with the warm tone on the neck, however, and I think that you're absolutely correct about that, Steven. I agree, Muhammad, that I may have to punch the darks more here and there, and I wonder if that issue with flatness is also the cause of the cheekbones appearing too wide (although I'm also worried that I may just have drawn the eyes too close together).
You've both made me want to return to this one, but I'm always a bit worried about approaching an old drawing without the subject present. I'd be interested to hear what peoples' thoughts are with respect to this - would you work back into something like this from memory?