I get asked a lot how I make my portraits look so realistic. It’s difficult to answer really. I think first and foremost it is just years of practice. However there are a few things that really are essential to making fur and your pet portrait look realistic.
Look at the direction the fur goes in and make your pencil/paint/pen marks follow the same direction. If you draw random marks that don’t it just won’t work.
Look at all my pet portraits and you will see they all follow the same direction as the fur of the subject. Look how the fur lies over the bones and muscles. Falls around skin creases and on their head. It will help you build up structure to your drawing too and stop them looking flat.
My computer is on a go slow, but I will dig out some close up examples for you tomorrow or Thursday so you can see. If you look at this GSD puppy Kofi it will give you an idea. Study the pen strokes and you should see what I mean.
Kofi as a puppy