Shaded Snail

Catherine V. Holmes writes,"Shading is one of the easiest ways to add depth, contrast, character and movement to your drawings"(41). The author recommends the use of a light pencil such as 3B, 4B, 5B, etc. But of course an HB pencil will be just fine as well. I used HB 2. The process started with a sketch of the snail shell:

  

When beginning the shading process Holmes says to pay special attention to glared and reflections on the snail, those are the lightest areas and should be left almost white. I made sure to press lightly as Holmes recommends "don't use the full darkness of the pencil so that areas can be erased..." . Throughout the process I always made sure to keep the value scale in mind, it is a crucial part of shading. This actually took longer than I thought, about an hour and I finally had a snail:

I feel blending was the hardest part of the process. Smudging is messy, but usually my approach. However, I feel it's just not right. What is your blending technique?