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An artist absolutely must protect themselves from making endless changes at no extra charge. You can guarantee the likeness, of course and be willing to make changes until they are happy it looks like the person, and you can also indicate in your contract that you will be willing to do "minor alterations" but only allow them within 10 days of delivery, for example. You might want to specify some examples of what constitutes a "minor alteration".
Make it clear that any changes other than that (like changing hair color to something other than what was agreed, making a serious face happier than what was initially agreed to, etc.) are major changes and will be billed accordingly. (Smiles change the shape of every feature on the face, by the way, so it's not at all a minor change.)
I once had a client who agreed to a particular composition and signed off on photos of their son with their dog. The dog was misbehaving and they later had to give him away, so they wanted him taken out of the painting. I was already halfway through the portrait and I explained that a new painting would have to be started, with additional costs involved. They decided to keep the dog in the painting. As it turned out, they were very happy with the portrait, it reminds them of a dog that they did have some fond memories of, and this client has since gone on to commission four other portraits from me.
Clients respect you when you respect your own work and maintain a high level of professionalism. Offer an excellent product at a fair price and don't let yourself be taken advantage of.
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