I like your use of structure shapes in building the overall shape of the hands.
The big toe is freaking me out. Is it a thumb or a long toe, I need to see his neighbors to know for sure.
It’s a big toe. I think it looks long because it is in isolation.
Thank you so much. It was a knot my mind desperately needed to untie.
Oh, and a lovely toe it is.
Nice work! I especially like the one where the eyes are shut. 
Great job btw on the hair in those portraits. They’re so loose and sketchy, but so clearly define the shape and flow. 
I could swear it looks like a sketch made by Draw like a Sir.
I try to build my sketches with basic shapes before diving into the details. For him, I think, is a method of keeping your pencil moving on the paper until you have something. I’m not saying it’s a bad technique. In fact he’s made a whole manga series and has his own youtube channel. You’ should check it out.
Hehe. Though, I can’t claim ownership or anything as this is what more or less what typical pencil sketches looks like.
I usually am cleaner than this by doing a preparatory sketch or block out in a separate layer and then lower its opacity and then draw over it in another layer (that is what I did with my previous sketches), similar to how we do it traditionally by initially using a very hard pencil to block out your drawing and then using softer pencils to finalize your sketch/drawing. I’m kinda very lazy with this one and just want a very quick sketch.
I don’t do building the form with basic shapes here since I have a reference I work from. I find it easier to just directly draw the shapes I see. I do the blocking with basic shapes thing when I draw from imagination or as an exercise but I find it cumbersome when drawing from reference since I now have to fit these forms accurately on the reference, when I could just not bother with it.
Drawing from reference is a great help. I try to build up from basic shapes anyways to build my visual library. Because, there’s been several times where I’ve had to do something without a reference and it turns out terribly. I’m hoping I can change that. 
I try to make a more developed drawing with more details and some shading. I have some trouble with the hair. I don’t know how to draw curly hair.
Building from basic shapes help you with the general form of the subject, and with human figures, also helps you with the pose. I have done exercises where I break a figure into it’s basic forms and with human figures even simplified skeletons. But I don’t think it actually helps much in building your visual library. You need to actually study and draw/paint the subject extensively to build your visual library. From what I read, art apprentice of the past are instructed to draw eyes daily to get them be very familiar with depicting it because the eye is the most important element of a portrait. The idea is the same though, to study the subject intensively until it is burned into your brain. This was my goal with these sketches. I want to improve my depiction of human and humanoid figures. My plan is to draw the human figure and it’s various parts often, hopefully make several of these sketches a day (though laziness and procrastination keeps seeping in). I’ll draw from imagination once in a while to see how I’ll do.
Search Emmy Kalia Art on youtube. her drawing videos are excellent. she has several videos that show drawing different hair styles. she a great artist and her teaching and explaining is awesome.