u/FindingPure3638

Hello! I don't draw quite often as I get frustrated easy but for the past week I've been doing basic sketches, nothing too hard. Now, I am way more comfortable drawing on my sketchbook with a mechanical pencil. Sketching on a phone is painful, and I prefer having everything laid out infront of me as opposed to having to zoom in all of time. I did a sketch earlier and I'm having trouble doing the lineart. It just looks kinda soulless and the eyes look bad. I tried rendering the skin and going along with it but I couldn't. I am kinda stumped as to what to do so if anyone has advice that'd be really nice? I'd also appreciate any other critisisms.

I'm not very experienced in painting. In fact, this is my second ever serious painting.. And the first one was for school. I think I got the skin tones right, but whenever I try to add the eyes, they look creepy. Very, very creepy. It doesnt match the image at all. I had a good sketch laid down but the acrylics covered it up and im basically stranded for now

Any advice? His face is turning muddy because ive retried for 5 times at this point, and it doesnt look quite right. This is my third day trying, and I thought it would improve overnight (spoiler alert, it didnt). I can't get the happy face correct and my brushtrokes are always too thick (because I dont have any really small brushes.) Same with the smile. The sketch looked really good too.

I'm using thick acrylics + gouache, and using white tempera since I don't have any white acrylic paint.