oh god, the process..

This looks really good. And the bird looks fine, too, don't worry about it! The feathers are the hardest part though. I'd start out drawing fur in the direction of the feathers (loose fur, don't go crazy) then kind of shaping feathers out of it, starting at the top. Make sure to follow the basic rules of lighting, and use references. I'm not that great of an artist, but I do a lot of drawing from nature for practice(I never upload it, of course, because its not what I normally do, being a manga artist.)

Aaaand I'm commenting on this via my pony vector account. Yay. Very yay.