Well, looks like it was a bad idea to write an essay with the plot and stuff and not to post any non-linked images. Really guys, I only have until tomorrow and I would really appreciate some help and feedback

I have a new render of the character now:



This brings another question to add to my first post though. This render took me 1½ hour on a pretty good computer (quad core 3 ghz, 8gb ram). I'm not really sure what changed because yesterday the same amount of fur and such took me about 15 minutes. Any ideas what may have caused a that big increase?

I have added some claws using merge vertexes, changed specular color for the fur (does that increase rendering time?) and done a bit of lighting tweaking, but nothing that dramatic that it should take that much longer, I'd think. Maybe it's the render settings, can someone recommend good settings that might be suitable for this kind of project (which I will have to animate) in that case?