ok, here's the second installment guys. the picture in the middle there were scanned with a school scanner, which is why they're smaller, and slightly different from the other pics. but anyway! on to the tutorial-ness

part 1- eyes
the eyes, i feel, are a very vital part of a portrait. the eyes are the one thing that can show multitudes of expression, as well as personality, and if you do it well, the picture will come alive.
first, you want to start out lightly shading in where the dark areas will be, just so you dont get confused while shading around the shiny part of the iris. darken these spots gradually until they get to the proper darkness. you always want to make the cent of the eye very dark to increase the depth, unless of course, the photo reference doesnt allow it next, you want to fill in the iris, making sure to include LOTS of detail. detail in the iris is very important to give your subject expression and personality. after you've finished with the iris, shade, very lightly, the outer white part of the eye. even though it may look completely white, or one solid color, there is a lot of shading there. unless there are a lot of highlights and shadows, not like this pic, then when you shade the eye, its goin to be slightly difficult to see exactly where there are slight shadows and highlights, but if you pay attention and look hard enough, its easy enough to tell. smoothness in the outer part of the eye is sort of important to make it look realistic, i recommend a blending stump, or tortillion for this. try to get a few different sizes, and use a rather small one for the eye. now, in order to get rid of cloudiness that occurs sometimes when using blenders, stroke very lightly in one direction, like you would a paintbrush. then, if you still get some cloudiness, go over what you blended with a very light layer of pencil, using very small close together strokes.
after you're done with the inside part of the eye, or eyes, start on the outside skin. for skin, i tend to use very short very fine hatching. that way when you blend, it looks a lot smoother. in this picture their are a lot of midtones (technical term, ooh! lol) so pay a lot of attention to shadows and such so that the skin isn't all one shade.
once you're done with the skin, start working on the eyelashes. to make them look nice and soft, use a .7 lead pencil to sort of lightly shade where they're going to be, then use a .5 lead pencil to sketch in the actual lashes. use short strokes going from the eye outwards, lightening your pressure as you finish the stroke. use the same technique to fill in the eyebrows. pay a lot of attention to angle, shape, length, all that good stuff, eyebrows are EXTREMELY important int showing expression and emotion!!! use a lot of detail, and shade the eyebrows hair by hair.
go back and darken any areas you need to, and you're done with the eye! yay!
BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE, GO BACK AND LIGHTEN ANY LINES STILL VISIBLE!!!
usually from the eye i go onto the right side of the face, and the nose. now, with this particular picture, there are a lot of midtones, and no very dark extremely visible shadows. this makes it a little harder, so if you're just starting with portraits, i recommend finding one with lots of dark shadows and bright highlights. but anyway, start of shading very lightly, and darken as you become more certain where the shadows are. i use a fine crosshatching to get evenness. when you're done getting the general area of shading, use a larger sized blender to blend the crosshatching. the rule of thumb is that when you blend midtones, they will get darker, so make sure your crosshatching is slighlty lighter then the shading in the picture. now with dark areas of shading, the blender makes the shading lighter, but we'll get to that later. once you're done using your blender, a lot of times there will be unevenness, especially in large areas of equal shading. to minimize this affect, use the flat part of your finger, making sure its very dry, and lightly go over it, smoothing out the unnevenness now, if you want, you can either continue your way around the face and go onto the lips, or you can go to the nose next. i chose to go to the lips, so well do that next.
in this picture, there isn't all that much detail in the lips, but a lot of times, the lines and sich in the lips are a very good place to show a bit of realism. pay lots of attention to detail, and shade the lines first. like it or not, this can be a very tedious process, depending on the picture, but it'll pay off in the end once you finish shading the lines, and you most likely dont need blending for that, go onto the general shading of the lips as a whole. use the blender very lightly when you're finished, so as not to lose any detail in the lines of the lips.
the nose is a lot of times, the most difficult thing for people to draw, but its a lot simpler then it may seem. with a very subtly lgihted picture like this one, the nose is basically a bunch of shadows that form a general shape. i can't explain exactly how to shade and draw the nose, but here are a few tips. shade everything the way you see it, don't darken spots to highlight areas that aren't highlighted in the picture, a lot of realism will be sacrificed in doing that. also, draw the nostrils the way you see them. sometimes they may look funny to you, but i garauntee when youre finished with the drawing, it will look right. lastly, make sure its lined up properly with the eyes or itll throw off the entire face.
finally, any lines that still show, erase them. i cannot stress this enough, but unless its part of your style, dont outline the face. nobody has lines around their face to highlight where it is. use the shadows and shading to illustrate where the face ends and the background begins!
the first picture on the bottom their shows what it looks like before i erase the line on the side of the face, then after. unless the background is dark, which is not the case here, the lines will stand out and take away the realism in the picture! not good

as you go, there will be a lot of little adjustments you have to make, so if this happens to you, dont think you did a horrible job outlining the subject with me, tis gackt's nose. gah! i keep having to change it, lol.
anyway, i hope this helps guys! if you have any mroe questions, ask here!

next are the accessories, then lastly, the dreaded hair *dies*