Nah man, seriously they look pretty good especially for just starting again. Even the last girl -- I was just using the opportunity to make a joke more so than actually criticize. I'm finding that I actually am having quite a bit of trouble with eyes myself, and lips and noses -- my hands have been shaking worse than Michael J Fox sitting on a washing machine licking a car battery. Don't be discouraged at all man -- your work looks good. Your style kind of reminds me of the art during the opening loading screen of GTA V -- I don't know if you're familiar, but the faces you drew have a similar feel and style to that art. And I don't think tracing was in vain -- regardless of tracing, it still laid rough groundwork in your brain for how things are formed and flow into one another. Believe it or not, many legit professional artists use tracing for many different applications -- that's something I'm learning the deeper I get into this world -- there aren't many people who just flawlessly free-hand every single frame and panel from nothing but the mind's eye -- they use all manner of tools and abstract, outside the box ways to achieve the final product.
Art is about the effective communication of expression -- it's more about the ends than the means. Take hip-hop artists for example -- some of the most powerful, successful hip-hop tracks are driven by beats that were created using a loop or piece of a pre-existing piece of music that got emulated, chopped up, remixed -- the musical equivalent of "tracing," yet in the end was formed into a unique, original product independent of the origins in which it's rooted. If you have to trace a photograph or part of an image as a base and foundation for an idea of your own, you're merely doing what many of the pro's do anyway.
Be patient and love the fact that despite any imperfections, you are getting better every time you practice.
