I used Metaballs for the beginning and had problems while sculpting, because I didn’t mirror the object, so it was asymmetrical and the sculpt became a little annoying (solved with turning of mirroring in sculpt mode).
After the fur and texture paint, I watched the videos untill I arrived to the part where the environment get explained. From that point I followed the course again.
My PureRef Board (I mainly referenced to the live action Dodo from Alice in Wonderland):
The basic Blender approach for hair particles is to use a weight-painted density map. Which is just a bitmap colored blue for none and red for maximum hair parts.
