He Drew Me and I Drew Him

I had asked one of my twitter friends, @Artmaker, to draw a picture of me, and he agreed. Artmaker (AKA I-Ming) is a cartoonist who is the author of the web comic strip, Fantasy Story.

A few weeks later. he emailed me his picture of me, with his signature attached.
 
I think it is nice, so, I decided to draw him a picture of him in return.

I drew it with Microsoft Paint as it is not too troublesome because of scanning. I have a touch screen monitor, which makes it easier to draw him at certain points, like the hair and signature. I also used some of the features in Microsoft Paint to help with the drawing, such as the bending lines.

 
My picture of him, his photo of himself from which I copied from, and my signature. (I used Photoshop to lasso his face.

Finally, I drew him. It took about less than an hour, and I sent him my picture, and he said it was great.

But…my parents think that it would be better if I reshape the face a little. So, I reshaped a little bit of the chin, the nose, added a few lines, and changed the eyes and the eyebrows. Now, it looks like this:

It took me about 30 minutes. Then, I emailed him version 0.02 of my picture of him (still in beta 🙂 )

However, he said he liked the first one better.

So, what do you think? Is the first version better, or the second, and why?