Bengal tiger cub update

Although there's not a lot of apparent difference since my last posting there is some significant work gone into the image over the past couple of days.the most noticeable part being the fully worked up forelimb and rear quarters of the cub to the left hand side.i have now begun to build up tone on the body of the cub and as you can see several layers of graphite have been laid down already from H grade thru to B grade so far ,with stripes also beginning to be plotted in.you can see on this example how the correct tones,shape and form is produced by layering and the fur detail added pretty much at the last moment,sometimes if the fur looks a bit harsh i'll 'knock it back' a little by over-layering with a hard grade such as H or HB.Ive left the long hairs on the side of the tigers face for later as they're light toned and i wanted to establish the darker tone of the body fur first as well as the general outline of the face.i shall have to adjust the background toning above the tigers body as ive trimmed him down just a little,hence the white area between body and background.it is quite normal during the drawing process for me to perform minor alterations here and there and luckily layering gradually from lighter pencil grades gives me plenty of time to spot and rectify areas i'm not totally happy with.