Fur Research

Holy crap that looks awesome!

but how long does it take to render?

Pretty fast on school machines, but I haven't done any test comparisons. As a guess I'd say it adds 3 or 4 seconds. Next time I'm at school I'll do speed comparisons. It very likely will render faster if we convert the fur to polygons.

While it's getting closer to the groomed, wide brush sort of look in the drawings, I'm doubtful we can achieve the straight line appearance at the ends of the fur in contrast to the clumps coming to a point as seen here.

It may be possible to paint such an attribute but it would be difficult since the hair you see represented in the viewport doesn't reflect precisely the end results. If we absolutely must maintain that chopped appearance to the ends, a textured plane approach may work better (and render faster).