You have made an excellent drawing, with a very personal stamp characteristic of your works. I'm really very pleased to see your magnificent drawing, full of expressiveness and with very good handling of the pencil technique. The shading and lighting work is outstanding.
I hope you overcome your distaste for drawing hands and appreciate the enormous expressive potential they have. Together with the face, the hands are the most expressive elements of the human figure.
If you look at the portraits made by prominent artists, you will see that the hands are a very important component when it comes to showing emotions or moods.
Very good development of the step-by-step process of your drawing, I think it is magnificent and I'm glad that finally, someone has understood that it is a Visual Arts contest, what really matters is the work, not hundreds of words without a significant contribution.
Great drawing, congratulations!