Drawspace lesson I13: how to draw a cartoon snake

Well, a cartoon snake. A cuddly, even. I am not a big fan of snakes, really, but I'll do this lesson for the sake of the lesson.

LO13 is divided into three sections: basic contour, shading and marker outline. It suggests creating a grid for this particular sketch, but I want to try and manage without.
As I read the lesson before drawing I realized that drawing it without the helping grid could be really challenging since it has so many curves and details. The shading part seems simple enough and the marker outline is a 5 minutes work tops.

So this is it. This is the first part of the sketch.

It took me 20 minutes to draw, and 10 more minutes to outline. As you can see, there are no many helping lines, as promised. I did create a basic rectangle just to keep the proportion right. Also, I drew a full line when making the body's curves, erasing them afterwards.

This is the shaded and the outline finish. 10 more minutes.

I don't think that the marker outline was necessary here, but I did it anyway.
And, as you can see, I managed to keep the right proportion without the square grid. And for that I'm proud.

Have a great day!