Fasoft: Thanks, I hope to find the time to model and rig the complete character. Hey, I visited your gallery and I think you should have no problem to produce hair with Blender :). There is some really good stuff on your website. By the way, the link to the Fire Oracle is broken, it should be Flames.html instead of flames.html.
I started to texture Klaus, here’s the current, very early stage:
Looking very good. Some more modelled wrinkles would really help the look though, I think.
Great particle hair. Looks perfect.
BgDM
Thank you very much, BgDM. The hair took a while and now I started to texture the hairline (currently only in the center). I thought about adding wrinkles using bump mapping, but maybe I should try Sharpconstruct?
I wasn’t comfortable with the eyes, I think they lacked depth and looked too cartoony and the eyelids needed to be refined for closing them in animation.
I can’t wait to paint the face colour texture…
Next update, spent some more time on the hair (didn’t look good from the sides and rear) and worked on the hairline texture and minor changes of the head mesh. Still no skin texture :):
Well, I don’t know what style you’re going for but to me the face looks a bit too exagerated. It’s mainly the eyes and lips that are too large for my taste. If you’re going for a more stylized approach that’s probably fine though.
I think you’re right, MrSandman666 - here’s an update, I worked on the size and the colour of the eyes and the shape of the lips:
That hair looks very nice. How many guides did you use? And further more, what kind of settings did you use for that grizzly goldie locks look (The third pic on your particles are fun try out.)?
And for a small crit, I don’t like his ears, seems some what unfitting for him.
I agree on the ears. They could probably be re-worked. rndrbrain has a thread on focused critiques where he is studying ear topology. Also, I was wondering if you are using ray transparency on the corneas of his eyes. I read the cornea has an IOR of 1.375 or so. Fantastic work though!
Thank you very much, also for your constructive crits! I’m currently using 17 guides to control the particles. Haha, I made some screenshots to show you my settings for Curly Klaus :D. I use a texture (in this case Texture 8, see the red border in my screenshot) to control the force and get the curliness.
Yes, I am using ray transparency on the corneas (IOR 1.5). And I will try to improve the ears… at least they need auditory canals.
Thanks from the settings, thoro. I’ll be trying them out as soon as I get back to my own computer.
Huge update: (at least under the hood)
After being a bit unhappy with the overall appearance, I threw away half of the model and returned to symmetrical modelling. The eyes are improved now, I spent some time on the eye’s texture and the modelling of the eye-socket. The ears received some changes, too.
I also gave him new hair, this was a lot of work and I’m on a first-name basis with Blender’s Static Particles now :).
I have to say your particle hair is very good. Perhaps since you are on a first name basis with it you could write a small tutorial on how to acheive realistic hair styles(not just a furry ball). Hehe, perhaps wishful thinking ;). The overhall looks sound. Before he had an ongoing surprised look about him. It looks much better now.
I like it. The hair looks really good BTW.
Aligorith
Thank you very much, guys.
Woodman5k, I think a video tutorial about Hair and Fur using Blender’s Static Particles would be cool - I could imagine to do a workshop on this year’s Blender Conference, if there’s enough interest. We could tape it there…
Small update, started with the skin colour texture:
Another update - worked on colour/bump/spec textures:
It is looking good thoro.
You need to add a lot mor colour variation to the colour map though. Very subtle and small opacity values really make a huge difference in the final render. Some of my PSD files get over 100 MB in size with all the layers that I add.
Love the hair. Looks perfect.
BgDM
Thanks, BgDM! Yes, the colourmap will get some more details - veins, spots and skin tone. I’m currently at 79MB, let’s see how huge the final file will get… 
Painting the bump map is harder than I expected - it’s very difficult for me to get the right amount of detail - sometimes the crinkles look too hard, sometimes you just can’t see them. I’m thinking about building a set of brushes for crinkles and pores.
I have to say every time I look at klaus I am just really impressed with the eyes. Can I ask how you get that reflective quality? It really makes the eyes believable to me and I would love to know how you did it.
Painting the bump map is harder than I expected - it’s very difficult for me to get the right amount of detail - sometimes the crinkles look too hard, sometimes you just can’t see them.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. From what I have seen the person who could give the best advice on bump maps would be BgDM. Perhaps he knows a few tricks that we don’t.
I’m thinking about building a set of brushes for crinkles and pores.
Well, when you do don’t forget this is an open community 
hehe.
As I once saw on a forum, “Colin Mockery is the sexiest man alive!” lol
Wooman5k: Thank you very much - I’m usually using an AngMap texture in my scene’s world settings to get these reflections. I just bought a 12cm mirror ball and take some photos whenever I’m at places that seem to make an interesting AngMap :).
Here are some examples - Office, La Palma, Blue Sky, Volcano:
I did some tests with custom brushes for bump mapping but returned to the standard tools…
i_am_lime: Haha, how different tastes can be ;).
Update: Did some additional research on how to make the skin look more vital. Also changed the hair a bit and continued with the bump/colour maps (click image to view bigger version):
