Milo's Portrait

I think this is my favorite pet portrait that I've done so far. This is Milo, who sadly recently passed away. The customer ordered this custom pencil portrait as a gift for her mother, Milo's owner.

Here is the photograph the customer sent to me:

As you've probably noticed, the photograph is distorting the perspective a bit, so Milo's head looks really, really large when compared to his feet. So I adjusted the photo in Adobe Photoshop to give him more realistic proportions:

Then I used that modified image as a guide for my drawing.

I drew the fur by drawing lots of tiny strokes all pointing in the same direction, smudging them with a tissue or blender stump, then drawing them again, then blending them again, until it looked right. Then I used a kneaded eraser to pull out a few light hairs and whiskers.

Once she received the portrait, the customer told me that she "couldn't have asked for a better drawing!" I hope that her mother enjoys the portrait as well, and that it brings back memories of happy times with Milo.