Wanted to get into this for ages so I have!

 

Thought I'd start with something easy, so I picked this teddy:

 

And this is my work so far:

 

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Cute subject :D Not really much to comment on so far, but I look forward to seeing your further progress :)

Decided to do a bit more before bed, hope its looking fairly ok so far.

I would recommend starting big and ending small. Right now it looks like you've jumped straight into the details (strands of fur). But the problem is that when you do this, it's harder to get the shading right, and you can see that bits of white show through. I would start of blocking in the main colours and getting the very basic shadows right. Then once you have everything planned out, then you can go back in and work on refinement and details (like strands of fur).

I hate the "block it in" style in everything but pixel art.

I find it never comes out as good, by just working into it more and more with various tones you get a far more realistic disperesal of tones and it is easy enough to concentrate dark and light tones to mimic light and shadow.

You can still work with various tones when blocking it in. It's just a matter of building it up slowly rather than trying to work in all the small details right away. It's a process that most artists would suggest, but ultimately it is up to you.

You can still work with various tones when blocking it in. It's just a matter of building it up slowly rather than trying to work in all the small details right away. It's a process that most artists would suggest, but ultimately it is up to you.

 

This. With blocking, you can get some really nice tones and colours which are subtlety reflected on the final layer. Another bonus is the fact that no area will have white in it, unlike in your current case.

Here's a great example of what I mean, and I even chose a wolf on purpose since it deals with fur :)

 

http://cerona.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2qnhwf

 

There you can see the process I was trying to explain put into actions. There are work in progress screenshots of each stage and together they show you how most - if not all - professional artists go about building up a painting. Notice that the artist didn't jump straight into strands of fur. Those were saved for the last stage, after the main colours and shadows were laid out.

Still don't like blocking filling. I have used it to start the white areas though cause you can't paint white on white lol.

I favourited that link simply because I have a wacom intous 3 that collects dust and I need to use it one day!

 

I also find this inspirational if you need a little, where professionals showcase their pieces ;)