Hi, in my paint-over to make the flash photo i mainly established a clear light source and made a few anatomical changes. I can tell in the original picture you already have a good understanding of planes, but you need to understand how light logic works based on your concerns about the image looking dull. The strangeness concern as well may have been the small tweaks I made to the anatomy (making the eyes symmetrical, and the cranium higher) In general, if you have these concerns in your art frequently then you would benefit a lot from - form studies (drawing cubes and spheres in different lighting scenarios) - separating the light and dark families (value) - studying face anatomy (the Asaro head for painting planes in light, and face proportions) I used more semi-realistic proportions but you can always tailor the face to how you want it by studying want you personally like whether that’s realistic or completely stylized. Each of those can be studied from YouTube!