I'm lost

[sharp yew]

I've been staring at this for so long I can't tell what the issue is I know it's something with the colors or values but I can't figure it out help meeeeee

[dark flame]

I'd say your construcction of the head itself is one of the main issues, it feels a bit off

I'd reccomend going more in depth with skulls and use 3d models for that as well

Then look at how others stylize faces

Also I think you're overcomplicating shading

The cleaner everything is, the more confident it looks

Confidence makes it look overall more appealing

The face has a lot of random strokes I feel like, without you knowing what actually exists there for the plaes of the face

Then everything else is just lighting practice, practice where your light is hitting, and then go from there

Eventually when youre good enough at confidently knowing where your light is hitting, then move onto having two light sources at once, or bounce light

Things like that

Think of light as an eyeball