Thank you for the critique, I shall take that into consideration 
Here are my computer specs:
i5 6600 Skylake CPU
Asus 980ti GPU
2Tb HDD
240 gb SSD
32 gb corsair vengence RAM
EVGA Gold modular power supply
Cooler master EVO 82.9
I´m looking forward to the viewport render and everything you come up with next. The bird you posted on your facebook page has very nice fur and feathers aswell. What materials do you use for fur? Anything special? (I´m curious about both the wolf and the bird).
The design of the forum is a lttle bit misleading; by hitting on “reply” under the post of a person you would like to adress, you don´t actually adress that persons post but the whole thread leaving everyone guessing whether or not his post was being adressed (in this case, its fine, since we can count it down ). I fell for this myself.
It´s probably best to write one post with a layout that is something like this:
"Person x: yes
Person abc: thank you
Person omega: i shall take that into consideration "
Keep up the nice work! :yes:
Ah, thankyou for clearing that up for me, forums confuse me lol 
The bird was rendered in the internal renderer instead of cycles since I wanted him to look cartoony. The material included 3 textures, one being the UV image texture, the second a color ramp to control transparency so it’s transparent at the tip, and the third is another color ramp which makes the root of the fur darker than the tip. So it’s nothing fancy, I find with fur that if it doesn’t look right it’s probably because it’s not dense enough, so be generous with the children hairs and put most of the time in the combing.
The bird feathers are just an alpha texture with a normal map generated from the texture so their much simpler than they look
Here’s a video where you can see the shader for the wolf fur -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcCuUBIiI1I
Any further questions don’t hesitate to ask!
Wow, I have to admit that for a second I doubted these were renders… Definitely the best fur I’ve seen made with blender! Keep the goodness coming, subscribed
Wow thank you, that really means a lot And thank you for subscribing
Amazing job! Maaaay be the fur on the sides is a bit too uniform, a bit like a rug.
Could you make it a little bit more uneven? Just a tiny bit?
But really it is already very cool!
Thank you for the feedback, I shall do my best
Where is ma jaw…
Well, it is the best fur i`ve ever seen. Outstanding work. Keep posting
Regards
TJ
Haha thank you!
So simple and yet so effective; true signs of a masterpiece! Nice little rig you´ve got there by the way. Thank you very much for taking the time to make that video, it´s very informative, well/clearly structured and to the point! Signs for nice teaching qualities there :yes:
I picked up some neat ideas about both rigging four legged creatures and about setting up vertex- groups for fur, plus it´s very nice to know that having good-looking fur mostly comes down to density and grooming/combing, not some crazy shading wizardry. Makes me want to jump into a furry project myself. I´m still curious about many things but first I´m going to try and see what I can come up with using what I know now.
If the high resolution render of this wolf holds up to what one would expect/hope it to look like based on the midres wip-renders you posted, this project of yours is quite probably going to set the blender community on fire. Fingers crossed for that, looking forward to the progress, please keep us updated! :yes:
I’m pleased to hear you found it useful! Your welcome to post the progress of your project here as I would love to see how you get on, I may be able to give you some feedback on it too 
And thank you for all the compliments it’s very encouraging to see such a positive reaction
Here’s a render I just did now, I’ve been working on the leg fur and mouth though I still have a lot that I need to do. The eyes are bugging me, I think I could get more of an ‘alive’ feel to them. Though I suppose the static expression isn’t helping XD
Once I parent the mouth and eyes to the rig I can then render him in a more wolf-like pose and then I’ll really see how he’s looking. I also need a name for him so if anyone has any ideas let me know!
Here’s another update. I included the viewport as well so you can see the model. It’s amazing how much the fur can change the shape and look of the model. My wolf is certainly getting there now, just small tweaks are needed here and there. I’m still playing with the look of the eyes and the proportions since I want him to feel as real as I can possibly manage. I love his ears in this, their slightly more alert than his neutral pose.
The render time is currently 2 mins and 8 secs. It’s rather high for one of my models since they normally just take 30-40 seconds so I’m going to work on trying to downsize it as much as possible without sacrificing quality. I plan to animate this wolf and would rather not wait days to see the result of a few seconds 
If you have any questions just ask I really don’t mind explaining things in more detail, I enjoy talking about it since I don’t meet many people who are interested in my hobby
I won´t ruin your thread for others by posting my work, but thank you for your kind offer! 
Regarding giving feedback; I will take you up on that! Whatever I come up with, I will probably post in my sketchbook thread. I will send you a private message (Notification) when I have something posted.
Regarding your newest pic; can you spot the difference?
Here´s a little tip that might help you develop your eye for proportions much faster to an even higher degree of accuracy; By using the Quick Preferences addon you can very quickly change the lighting to see the silhouette of your mesh in the viewport and better see if there are issues with proportion. Use this regularly for a couple of weeks and after that you probably won´t need any visual crutches ever again regarding how great your eyes already are.
Also you might want to check out if you can fit a simplified wolf skeleton into your mesh. I feel like there might be some anatomical issues, especially with the rear limb.
Keep up the great work and keep us posted!:yes:
I’ve not heard of this addon before, I shall definitely check it out! I’ve never been very good at proportions so I really appreciate this
And I look forward to seeing your work
I think the paws may need to be reduced in size. And the first segment of the legs (closest to the paws) may need to be a bit longer.
This is looking amazing. How old are you btw? Just watched the video. You’ve got a whole lot of talent right there. Keep up the awesome work!
Very nice work !
Daang, how many GPUs are in that beast?
i love the GRRRR! render!
@ Nathan.Ferguson I’m 19, and thank you
@ jshaffe I have a GTX 980 ti, just the one though, you’ll be amazed at how much rendertime you can shave off when you optimize the scene
@ S-Markt Thanks!