I continue to work on this gorgeous wolf, but all art (to me) is a balancing act to make sure that all the parts of the painting work together to form a cohesive whole. I also want to mention that I changed his eye color to amber from blue. There seemed to be too much blue in the painting for this eye color to have the “wow” effect I was looking for. The amber actually complements all that blue, so it is a better choice. Sometimes you have to change part of a painting that you really love to make a better overall effect. I think this is the case here. Here is a photo of the wolf:
After seeing the photo, I realized that all the fur had the same sharpness and clarity. It was hard to find a clear focal point for the painting. So I decided to “blur” the fur on the back making it less distinct so that the face was the focus. Here is the second photo:
This one looks better to me. You cannot have too many focal points; it confuses your viewer.