So… this drawing is turning out badly when i’ve barely started. What am I missing?

[JoshRaed]

So this is what I’m trying to draw in my own style.

And this is what it’s getting me so far.

So… what do I not know that I should know about drawing this? Does it only look wrong because it’s unfinished, and a version with all the details will look fine? It looks to me like this will still look bad when finished.

[thepenmonster]

You're trying to copy it by eye without doing any construction of the underlying head, best I can tell from this.

[JoshRaed]

The construction is there, but it’s just an oval to draw the head over, and me working out where the eyeline is. What else should I have?

[Kelheor]

I would really recommend finishing it first. You haven't made a sketch and jumped straight to line art. Which is something you can do, but at the beginner level having a proper sketch would be more useful. An oval for a head as construction is not really enough of a sketch you need. Make symmetry lines, have a nose, ears, brows, mouth line placed where they should be.

[JoshRaed]

What is your process for finding those lines?

[thepenmonster]

Look at this quicky trace and deconstruction I made. The question marks are there because I don't know the character and am only guessing those bits.

What is your process for finding those lines?

Do the tutorials everyone has linked for you a few dozen times now. Those show you the breakdowns of the body pretty much first thing.

[thepenmonster]

And it's perfectly fine to trace art and try to take it apart to see how it works. That's one of many learning tools available to you

[NickRowler]

When people say to construct the underlining head, they mean to look at how his face is constructed, drawing the guide lines before adding the detail.

Doing Hobbie's face might be difficult because of his stylized features. Like how his eyes are very wide set. I think my suggestion would be, because he is know for having a sketchy style, your line work should be looser and more rough looking.

[Kelheor]

The basic one would be a central line and eyes line, like @NickRowler did.
Google for Loomis head, you might find it helpful. Getting a Pinterest account and looking through different tutorials is nice too, you can find a lot of useful stuff there, like this

Sketch more, don't try to do the completed lined picture from the first shot.