Here's my first commission for the new year! :3
Normally I do the fur coloring before the face colors, but in this case the commissioner didn't have a reference for me to follow, and gave me the opportunity to design this character's fur pattern. To give me a bit of a guide to work from, I did the colors I was certain of first (eg. a pink tongue) before doing the remaining ones. It helped me determine how dark I could go with the fur, how light I could go with the belly fur's brightness, etc!