Thanks to all of you! I really appreciate the kind words.
@Lego
None of those used any particular reference except the last one, I used a picture of a model as a reference for the back pose but not the frontal colored pose.
@Forlorn Serpent
I'm not quite sure how it happened honestly. Generally though, the way I do it is I make a particular set of rules to follow when starting a face. First the face shape, then I place the nose as the anchor that helps guide the rest of the face's proportions. Next is the ear which helps me orient the angle of the face. Once I understand the angle, the rest is just knowing how to draw stuff and what they look like in that angle.
This definitely came with practice, I wasn't drawing faces this way prior to actually putting in a lot of practice on real human heads. You learn a lot of neat little tricks that help with consistency when you do this. Such as using ears to help guide where eyes go/orient the head and using the nose to help guide where the rest of the face goes.
As for the woman in the grey scale one, it's a dropped character concept I've been trying to suss out but have been having very little luck with. Her hand is a skeletal hand, I intended for her to be inspired by Shinto goddess Izanami no Mikoto so I wanted to include undead elements in the design. Originally I was gonna have a translucent skull appear beneath her face in certain areas but I have no idea how to do this so I copped out and made her hand a skeletal one haha
Small update for Christmas!
A character design/sketch I'm making for friends on Discord, this is the first one I've finished. But we're keeping it spoiler free till Christmas so have a silhouette for now!
This one started off as a simple holiday picture but ended up being an experiment. I'm trying out a different method, basically forgoing lineart and painting everything using shading to create edges instead. Still a WIP atm and rather rough but I like where this heading!