How to take portraits with nikon d3100?

I get really ugly images of faces with 18-55mm kit lens. Do you have some tips to get better portraits.

A good photographer can take good photographs no matter what kit they're using.

You need to use your lens at its 55 mm setting

You need to study portrait lighting

http://portraitlighting.net/examples.htm

The ideal, portrait lens is a medium telephoto lens, like one of the Nikkor AF-S 50 mm lenses, but you can get very decent portraits using your 18-55 mm lens at 55 mm and using good portrait lighting

As you drill down through the website on portrait lighting, you will see exactly how the photographer set up their lights to get each resulting image