• How I’d advise painting furry volumes. As you know, there’s a number of basic shading technics in painting and drawing, and I like this one as the most appropriate for me — I find it one of the most rational by painting the fur — to start coloring with a neutral, halftone local color, then shade it according to the volume and lighting. Usually this underpainting should be darker than fur, as it would be in the shadow. So then add layers above to add the fur. All the brushes have a minor color and lightness jitter to make the fur more realistic.

• So, try at first to place basic shading with a simple brush you prefer to paint usually, hard or soft, and then put the fur strands above, according to the form and lighting.

• After it’s may be needed to make some areas deeper (darker) — for example, shaded areas deeply among strands near their roots — or set some light and highlight accents in the lights.

• You can experiment also with layer’ and brush blending modes, such as Soft Light, Screen, Multiply, etc.

• As in painting or drawing at all, I’d recommend proceeding from common, main shapes to partial ones and details: firstly, specify the main big volume, lights and darks, then put non-detailed fur strands using matching brushes, and then make the detailing with detailed fur brushes.

• In the end, I’d add some of the sharpest strands or hairs, maybe blur or darken some of the underlying strands, light up some of the most visible, highlighted. Try to make some of them softer or sharper, darker or lighter in the finish or work, kind of post-processing. Add some highlights, specular.

• As said before, brushes # 2, 3 and 8 have two options for each one, for left and right hair growth direction.