Shakey Willie...

When I'm trying to make a new image design, I usually work with classic texts, and tie a recognisable image that I can create from that text to a part of the text that relates to the image, e.g. the silhouette of Sherlock Holmes is created from a section of text that relates to the description of Sherlock. Sometimes though, the image can be a bit tricky....some things just don't work out so well as a silhouette, and in particular the lack of facial features can make some things look odd.

This is what I think I've ended up with when I've tried to do William Shakespeare. I sketched out what I hoped was an OK rough outline, based on the famous portraits/etchings of him:

Then I wrote out the text outline (using Hamlet's soliloquy , and it just didn't look quite right, somehow. So I sketched the light shape of an oval frame, like a painted portrait would have. Then I felt it might need a suggestion of facial features...but even those don't look quite right to me. Sometimes I don't know if I'm just being over critical, or if it's something best abandoned as a bad idea. What do you think? Leave it blank? Add hints of features? Chuck it?

Gah!