semi realistic ape creature groom development

I was given the opportunity to jump into grooming years ago and I have finnally got the chanse to revisit some old works and those considering successful I am going to publish both as techiques being used and current skill progression. After I had two creatures to work on in mayas xgen I have had many obstacles solving issues regarding the cfx department. Despite being responsible for the design I needed clean and well prepared groom to deliver for the next stage involving groom sim. Back in 2018 xgen and maya builds still had issues with that even officially announced at the Autodesk forums. I had to chose between ewaiting for the next more stable patch or to learn new tools for grooming such as shave and hair, yetti, ornatrix being available back then for the majority of small studio pipelines and freelancers as well. I chose Houdini. And nevel looked back, never looked aside... Did not need to anymore. This ape I have made for personal studies chosing average complexity due to time and efforts. I have had to repost it because of potential NDA issues and change its overall look in general. Grooming really needs skills, time and efforts for an artist to properly learn. The more once get into the subject the more to study. The other tool that gave me stable outcome is Renderman. In real future UE is going to deliver even more. For those interested in grooming techniques and do not have yet the chanse to work on big high end productions I highly reccomend the wonderful creature garage channel hosted by JesusFC and Co, Kai Stavginski introducing groom thech back in 2017 are still pretty legit and completely cover the basics of the current groom tool builds C++( yes you need them), Rohan Dalvi and his optimised workflows towards grooming are delicately opening the doors to complete SOP groom builds and this makes the entire workflow like 30% faster and more, Alexander Weide and his tireless efforts to support and help Renderman users on how to work with the engine more properly. Cheers and better inspiring days to all of you!