Stevie the skunk-picking out the detail

The focal point of the drawing is stevie's amazing tail raised up and over her head in the way only a skunk can do.to portray this tail which is for the most part stark white against the white of the paper i'm having to very patiently utilize negative drawing techniques and indentation of details to lift the tail from the paper.the background toning is,thus far,comprised of two layers of H grade pencil followed by a singly layer of HB grade pencil applied very carefully and slowly around the tail details.toning the background is the only way i felt that i could effectively portray the animal however it does add many hours of work to the piece and i havnt as yet decided on how i'm going to tackle the foreground toning.