An Aquarelle Painting: LIONESS + Progress pics

So it was someone special's birthday a few days ago and I decided to draw her a painting as a gift. 

One of her favorite animals is the female lion, so I grabbed my paintbrush and started painting away to make this illustration:

Painting animals is not in my comfort zone, but I gave it my best and it turned out okay. 

Progress Pics

I started off with my favorite thing to paint: EEEYES

Continued to the other features: 

Then the difficult part appeared, the fur. I had absolutely no idea how to render the texture of fur so I kind of winged it 

Some work on the ears also: 

And there we have it, a painting of a fierce lioness.