A Portrait of Jarod

I recently started a portrait of Jarod. This will be my most ambitious portrait yet, not only in size, but in composition. As the painting develops I will show just what I'm talking about. So far I've blocked in areas in the background, but I have been focusing more on the face. I started by doing a white and grey underpainting, and it was a bit scary because poor Jarod looked like a mime!
It's been hard trying to capture his features and his smirk, maybe the most difficult part has been rendering his eyes. Jarod has perfect elongated ovals for eyes, but if I were to paint or draw perfect ovals it would end up looking like a cartoon. I had to look closer at how light and shadow played with the shape of his eyes. I was finally able to see some angles and strait edges, this made painting them a bit easier.
Jarod's smirk was another element in the portrait I started having minor problems with. I didn't want him to look like he was giving me a full smile, but I also didn't want him to be too serious. I was able to capture his mouth somehow, one corner up, the other straight and then down. I'm very excited to see the end of this piece, and I hope to submit it to a show or two in the future.