Amen, Brother! I'll be lucky to have worthwhile skills in time for retirement. I've wasted a lot of years assuming I could just start when I was ready.

Thanks guys.

Mary it is a good point, but one I am not sure how to reconcile. What if I put a little touch of brighter blue in the highlight area of his right eye?

There really isn't any reflective light that would be colorful for me to throw in his hair unless I make the grey areas have some blue catch lights. Hummmm?

As promised, changes and scrap.

Here is the progress I made today:

Here is a close-up of his face. I did not make any changes to his hands.

Here is the composite color reference. I shot this a number of ways and am showing the color scrap, because I wanted you to see that he really did work on his tan, plus he told me he lost a number of pounds getting ready for this. :)

I thought I would show this image to give you an idea of how inconsistant the shooting of these images are for me.

Different light from a different direction. The painting colors are based on my color sketch and the actually materials.

Beth,

You said you really wanted this one to be

Beth, congratulations on a very important commission! I liked seeing the reference photo, and that you had draped behind him too. In the painting I thought your background was really nice, almost marbled, and now I see how you put that together. Also the hands really are excellent.

In addition to the things Steven mentioned I noticed the length of the face to be slightly different. I thought in the reference his eyebrows rather pointed up at each other, giving a kind expression. And in the reference, his upper lip is somewhat thicker than the lower, with the philtrum not quite as wide as in the painting. He seems to almost have a pursed lip expression, and I believe the size of the lip and philtrum give him that look.

Does the shadow side of his face seem quite dark, or is it just my monitor? The hands do not seem to have as great a tonal variation; maybe that is why it seems apparent.

Also, I think you did a very nice job rendering the suitcoat. (Or frock coat, or holy coat, or whatever the proper name is, sorry.) It seems very fluid and natural.

Later note . . .

The catchlights in the eyes are formulaic. This is especially evident in the eye on our right. This is the shadow side of the face, yet the catchlight suggests a light shining on that side, from the front. You will not lose any effect by eliminating that catchlight.