Pencil Drawing of my friend's cat / with the reference photo

It's been a while since my good friend Paul sent me a picture of his babe. It was love at first sight, - I've decided to make a pencil drawing one day, but quality of the picture was reduced when being sent, so I had to figure out the details myself, - my imagination was drawing every single piece of her fur.

I've started from making a sketch, I always do it with a hard pencil to not leave traces. Right after that I made the background a little bit darker than the cat.

Then I get to the darkest areas of the drawing, I like to start with eyes, it gives an impression of working with soul, not just with pencils and a piece of paper )

Right after finishing with the eyes, I usually fill darker areas with graphite, using a Q-tip, it's such nice device that allows you to not cross the borders of lines, sometimes it can be fatal ))

Then I get to tiny fur details, using different pencils from HB to 6B to make it vivid and add some volume to the drawing. This is the most fun part to me!

After that I make the darkest areas darker and bring out details from the dark areas with the help of eraser.

And finally I draw whiskers with eraser and reflections to the eyes!

And here is the reference photo of the babe that was taken by my friend )