so the eventual idea is to create this guy
and here is what i have of his head so far
something about the eyes and ears bother me, but his forehead and jawline look ok to me. i also dislike the material, but its the best i can get. any ideas?
I’d add one set of verts around the ears to separate them from the head further like they are in the drawing. It looks to me like the problem is that the transition from head to ear is too smooth, so if you make the area that connects the two sharper, and smaller, it should look better. And the skin really isn’t that bad…how realistic do you want it to look? If you’re going for the toon look, we’ve got some experts here in the forums who can give you great advice on it.
The nose has to be… uhmm… er… ROUND… 
And the eyes need to pop-out the face… :o
Besides the crits about the ears…