The Nightingale - pencil interiors

One of my professors suggested that I try rendering my Nightingale illustrations in pencil, so they would look more like interior illustrations from a book. I did these at full size, 6x9". I enhanced and cleaned them up slightly in Photoshop.

Because this illustration is so dark, I did it on toned paper with white pencil. This method saved a lot of time, but it needed a lot of enhancement in Photoshop and doesn't look as smooth as the white paper. Perhaps drawing at 150% size would help minimize the appearance of the paper texture.