Help curing "anime-itis" and doing proper portraits.

I'm a bit sick today so forgive me for typos and the bad drawings.

I've been trying to pull away from the anime style that I draw in and get some time in doing more realistic portraits so I spent what little time I could doing a portrait of my favorite artist.

I was hoping that y'all could maybe give me some advice or point me to a book or two that might be able to help me out.

I don't know if it's at all ignorant of me to say this, but I don't like the grid method of drawing portraits at all. It feels to mechanical to me, if that makes any sense.

I really appreciate any advice y'all could offer!