Jason by Amanda Queen

I think you're right. I'd use softer pencils, and use them lightly. There's a hardness about this face that babies just don't have (unless they're sons of Satan, of course...); the eyes - that is, the pupils - are way too big, and the general proportions of the face and body, the way the head sits on the body, need some further thought. The features are too sharply drawn, but on the whole I think your self-diagnosis is right: it's too heavy-handed, and I don't know that there's much you can do with the drawing as it stands to correct that, so would be inclined to start again. Did you work from life, a photo, or imagination/memory? I would guess the third option: I suggest you go to the real thing and sketch what you see, lightly, paying particular attention to the proportions of the skull and the way it sits on the shoulders. If you get that wrong, you've lost the battle before you start - features will never look right: don't forget that a baby's head is very different in shape to an adult's. It looks to me as though you've tried to draw a baby's face on an adult's head - and the consequence is a bit alarming, to be honest! He looks like a little skinhead... Take another crack at it, try doing lots of studies of a particular child, from life if you can, so that you're familiar with the shapes, expressions, and the way babies hold themselves.

Ha ha! Good job I'm not super sensitive. Seriously though, the comments are great. I drew the pic from a very small photo of the baby, and he has very dark eyes and that red eye effect. I've had another go at it, changing the layout of his clothes, softening the lines and his chin, and added the hands in that were holding him up and it looks a wee bit better... but will have another go too!

Sorry, I might have been a bit gentler .. trouble is, I got caught up in the critique without thinking how it might be received! Still; better we say what we think than wrap things up with so many caveats that we might have meant just about anything ..... I think. Very small photos are to be avoided like the plague: they invite frustration because you just don't have the information to work with, and they are immensely deceiving about proportions - you have to enlarge so much to make a drawing from them, and then you have to judge the scale of individual features in relation to this enlarged space, and as we all tend to draw eyes too large anyway, because of the way we look at faces, ghastly failure is all but guaranteed....