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Clouded Leopard Fur Drybrushing

I've been working on drybrushing techniques for my Feliform Labs ocelot fursuit project. Since this does not involve ocelots or animatronics, I'm posting it here on my personal blog.

I noticed that some of my prototyping fur (Mendel's Fawn, color sand, fiber length 15 mm) looked a lot like clouded leopard fur without markings. I tried to drybrush some clouds, a few spots, and some stripes using pictures of real clouded leopards for reference. I used the Matrices drybrushing tutorial to learn the basic steps.

Drybrushed faux fur inspired by clouded leopard fur
Drybrushed fur
Sleeping Clouded Leopard in San Antonio Zoo
A real clouded leopard

The results look reasonable. They are much better than my first attempt at drybrushing, but I still need to improve my techniques. Some of the painted areas are noticeably matted. I tried to add some faint shading inside the clouds, but the results were too dark in some areas and overall not consistent enough.