DrawWithMike.net

i think what may be missing is the transition between the layers. Seriously better

Jay, I want to backtrack first - when you seemed to be drawing skin, and in disconnected patches. As I said previously, you'd drawn beautiful hair along the back. At 1 there's a lovely soft transition between the darker and lighter hair. And the light hair has the appearance of hair.

But at 2 the darker hair appears to slide under a solid patch of something. It even has a very sharp edge, so there's no disputing that it's "on top". Don't worry, I'm creeping up on your revision

The culprit is probably your reference, which is very short of sharp detail. And, unless you understand how hair behaves, it's really difficult to work out what you're seeing. Of all the Yellowstone Wolf photos I have, only one is laying. But this might help: Wherever you look, you see hair. Even in the very light areas. I suspect you'll find something better to refer to for detail if you run an online search. Perhaps try Pixabay.com or Pexels.com to begin with. All that said, your update is a great improvement. Area 3 for example, is now definitely hair. However, you would expect to see the ends of layers of hair in there. And the face is still a collection of unconnected patches of value. This might help - same wolf, but I've over-sharpened the detail. ALL the form is described BY THE HAIR. But I think you're creating the form and hoping viewers will assume it's hair? They won't - honest

Using the hair to naturally describe the three-dimensional form is a laborious task, but well worthwhile. And having either a sharp reference, or a series of references that you can pull detail from, really does help.

HI Mike,
Thanks for the thoughts. Your comments really help. The following update does not take your comments into account but the next one will. I've been working on the background.