You're welcome, Brian. Remember that I'm two steps removed from the live subject, so if you're seeing something different from the way I am, you're the final judge.
After I posted my critique, I was looking at my son, whose head was turned toward me, and I noticed the slight, rising creases in the neck. (I turned my own head and felt the same effect, but decided that didn't count, because I also consider cheesecake and Snickers to be primary food groups, so of course the flesh on my neck will crease when I turn my head.) Nonetheless, it's still that dark shadow, especially distinct and darker in value in the stripe of skin between the two dark creases and coming very far forward on the neck, toward the light, that caught my eye.
I mention it simply for purposes of also passing along something that Peggy Baumgaertner talks about in one of her instructional videos. Apparently one of her instructors felt that too many students were automatically reaching for the umbers for every shadow, so he made them all remove those and other dark earth "non-colors" from their palettes and figure out ways to mix up "real" colors for their shadows. I merely pass that along, I can't say much more about it from my own experience (which actually isn't very substantial.) Experiment with light red, Indian red, and caput mortuum in various mixtures. (Sneak the raw umber back on later; it's useful for glazing.)
My own observation is that it's an *extremely* rare shadow that even approaches black. Save those very darkest darks for accents (the "dark" counterpart of highlights) to be carefully used within shadows.
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Hybrid Mode
