Copycat Figure Drawings and People from Photos

I have spent yesterday and today drawing people with my free time. The top three were taken from photos. Right now I am interested in getting the a sense of the persons clothing and proportions. I am beginning to be interested in adding props and environment. What I want to do eventually is write and illustrate my own story book. (This is something I have been wanting to do for years, so I am excited to be finally working on the problems and insecurities that come with the task.)

Meanwhile I have decided that I need to spend a lot more time drawing to get my "chops" back.
I kinda stopped drawing regularly for a while there. The thing I am struggling with the most right now is getting the shading to look natural with the pen. I realized that, I need to be doing the drawings with combined watercolor, pencil, & pen technique consistently. By switching to just light pencil drawing and pen, I have been wanting more from the pen then what it can give.....

Copies from Kirill Chelushkin & Marinus Van Reymerswaele

I had the epiphany, that I should be looking at other artist's figures to help understand haw to accomplish this illustration project. It is so fun drawing copies of other artist's work. I learn so much! There are a lot of subtleties that I don't catch onto until I've actively tried to recreate the image. I am going to do a lot more! My next few should be from the artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. I am so excited about the way he depicts people. He kinda sumplifies them to the point of caricature, but the faces are quite endearing!

These images are taken from two different artist's. The boy in the top hat is from an illustrator named Kirill Chelushkin. I just discovered him/her ( I can't tell from the name), and I will be taking a much closer look at the portfolio I gave a link too. The top hat image is very similar to the one that shows up right away, but I was actually looking at a different version. (with hair)

The bottom two are images by Marinus Van Reymerswaele. He was a contemporary of Bruegel's...