Last semester for I tried to use Shave and a Haircut to do a groom for this bird I modeled and rigged. In hindsight I don't think I would have approached it this way, I definitely would have painted on his head and arm feathers, rather than grown the hairs on those smooth areas I think, but this was good practice. and I think its an ok render. Nothing amazing, and I find new mistakes everywhere, buy it was a learning experience for sure.
I'm going to upload some stuff about my rig and some test animations sometime, since that stuff turned out way better, so stay posted.