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Yes, I think you're on to something with the shadow underneath the chin -- as I look at it more closely I see that I was taking the bottom of the chin to be the bottom of the lighted area, where it meets the darker triangle of shadow on the neck. I'd suggest raising the tone of that dark triangle just a bit, and lowering the tone of the reflected light underneath the chin, also just a very little. I'm talking about very subtle changes, but ones that in combination would, I suspect, be effective.
I do understand your reticence to start fiddling with the facial features. I did a life-size self-portrait last winter which I considered virtually finished before I finally gave in to my nagging doubts about whether the eye on one side was too high. Through many critiques no one had ever commented on it. And owing to the influences of age and gravity, my eyes actually aren't mirror images of each other, and the one that's usually a little more open was the one that was too high, so the optical illusion was such that I was probably going to get away with it. One day I took extremely careful measurements in the mirror and discovered that, whatever the fleshy parts of the eyes were doing, the irises and pupils were in fact equidistant from other facial reference points. I checked the painting as carefully, and discovered that the "suspect" eye was indeed about 1/8" higher than the other.
No one had noticed it, and probably no one ever would have. Except me, every time I looked at that portrait. And the real heartbreaker was that the eye was Bouguereau-esque. (You know, Floyd Bouguereau, over on the East Side.) But one day I went into the studio and repainted that eye in the correct position, and I'm so happy I did. Did I paint it as well? Probably not, but having it in the right place was worth it.
More than a couple of instructors have related their own experiences in which their teachers had come by for a critique and had said something like, "That's a great eye [or ear or whatever]", and then had taken a turpsy rag and wiped it out and said something like "You found it once, let's see you find it again, just to make sure it wasn't an accident the first time."
You can think some more about the eyes, but try not to make a decision based on whether you'll be able to get the likeness back. You will. (You have to!!) As for the nose, it's probably easier than you think. Imagine the nose as a solid form with a triangular base; with top or high side lighting, that base is going to be darker than the lighted areas above it. Make it so, and don't interrupt that dark shape with little areas of highlight or reflected light. Retain the unity in that value shape and you'll create form.
An anecdote to finish: This isn't quite the same thing we're talking about here, but Daniel Greene relates an amusing story about a portrait subject whose eyes ACTUALLY WERE different heights, no question about it. His dilemma was whether to paint them that way and always have everyone who ever looked at the portrait assume he'd gotten it wrong, or whether to use artistic license to "fix" the problem. He finally painted it as he saw it, and everyone was happy. Some considerable time later he met the man's son, and saw that the son had the exact same physical features, including the uneven eyes. It was obviously a family trait, and Greene says he was so glad he'd decided to paint it the way he saw it.
Steven
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