We don't just force smiles.

Of course, that wasn't the original premise of this. I just wanted an insane look, but when I did it in the mirror to examine some details, I liked the way a finger held up my eyelid, but didn't want to draw myself reaching over my head to lift it, so then I got the idea for this. Then I developed the idea a bit more and came up with the forced smile, and the two fingers cocking my head to the side. I also originally had it really dark around the eyes to back up the insane look, but I didn't like it, since the fingers were supposed to be making the expression, and a strange darkness around the eyes didn't fit too well naturally. When I erased it, it kinda didn't go too well. You can kinda see it, especially on fullview.

I don't really like the shading too much, but at least it's dark, but it doesn't seem real. Don't worry that it looks like I'm 50; the cheeks do that, but if you look past that, you can really see me (I think). When I had started the hair, it was really grey, so I looked like I was 70.

And yeah, I got lazy with the shirt. And if you didn't realize yet, this is me.

Anyways, HB and 4B on Watercolour hotpress or something rather, A4 size (I think; whatever is standard paper size). Took a good...3 days? Which isn't really long at all.