Construction attempts

I've decided to post some ideas about construction today, even though it's a thing I fear and fight with all the time. It's so easy to draw something silly and energetic with no solid backbone, and just leave it at that. I'm usually very lazy and leave things unfinished that way. But it always makes me feel guilty, because I know with more effort and practice, that my funny or scribbly drawing could become a hundred times better and more believable if it had that hard earned skeleton of knowledge underneath.

I think the best combination for any sort of art is personality and skill. By personality I mean a certain energy or flair that comes from the artist themselves, and by skill I mean talents that need to be earned through work and study, like construction, perspective, etc. Of course, some people are born with a natural ability to learn those skills very quickly and easily. I'm not one of those people, however!

Learning construction has been extremely frustrating to me. Whenever I attempt to correct construction mistakes in my drawings, I'm always left with a hideously bland version of the original sketch. I often want to give up and just be satisfied with my wonky pictures, but one peek inside a Frazetta book or a Jim Smith sketch I have hanging up changes my mind again. I feel like I'd be so much more confident if I didn't have to struggle with construction problems and could draw with all that fierce energy. People who can combine all their strengths together like that to create such powerful art are total heroes to me.

So anyhow, I'm here to post some drawings that show my slow progress as I try to combine my natural drawing style with construction, which doesn't come naturally to me at all. I've always had a horrible time making both eyes on the same level, and making sure that the nose, lips, and chin all relate to each other. Usually I've got the mouth set too far inside the head instead of on a plane coming out from the nose, and the chin too far forward instead of underneath the mouth. In these recent drawings I'm posting here, I was trying really hard to consciously avoid those mistakes. The chins turned out a little better, but I still can't get the eyes to be right! By the way, I've flipped all these drawings so the mistakes can be spotted easier. A trick I learned from spying on Jim Smith himself!
I shouldn't complain too much, though. When I compare them to these sketches from a year ago, it seems like I've made at least a little progress. I know it's not much but it gives me a small thrill thinking that I might be a tiny step closer to where I want to be.
These drawings are pretty embarrassing, by the way. I'm sorry to say I couldn't tell how wonky they were until I flipped them over. And looking at them now I realize I have to worry about more than just eyes and chins...