Pencil shading trial, Discord chat and a quick heads-up to my Russian Patrons (Patreon)

For years and years, and years, I've been wanting to do some soft pencil shading, and I never was able to work out how the hell to do it. Using less force and harder pencils is one thing (I always put a lot of pressure on the pencil even in the very early stages of sketching), and yesterday I came across a tutorial that had the answer: circling instead of hatching. I'm really happy with this little guy. And oh, also, yes, I drew a dormouse with antlers. I suppose he's a deermouse? 

We'll have our monthly Discord chat next week! I'll send out the invitations later, after I've had a chance to coordinate the date with my husband. (Shared workspace, yay. ;))

And some info to my Russian Patrons: You may have noticed that I have disabled shipping to Russia in my Etsy shop. I'm terribly sorry about this, but while there was always a one in five chance that the parcel was lost, returned for no reason, or badly damaged, it's now become a fifty-fifty chance. :( If you'd like to get anything from my Etsy shop, please reach out to me and we'll see how we do it. (Teespring and Inprnt are not affected by this; they still ship worldwide!)