Has anyone been sucessful with creating “realistic” animal wiskers? I’m using the ring tool but can’t find a satifatory shading for that thin, translucent look. 
Personally I would put the whiskers in last…complete the image then export it as a PSD and import it back in as a texture. Then create a new layer, select the flat material and fill the new layer with the imported texture. Then just draw the whiskers in with your favorite tool (shading ehnancer/paintbrush/highliter etc). The whiskers tend to be so small in far away shots that mostly what is seen is reflected light anyway (unless it is a close up shot in which case they would still be relatively thin looking). Hope that helps.
Whiskers could also be created using the Cylinder3D tool. In the Initialize settings, you’d want to drop the X and Y values down to only 1 or 2, which would give you a long, thin object. This can be stretched out even farther by using the Scale gyro and typing a larger value into the Transform>Modifiers>Info>Z slider. Then rotate, move and snapshot instances of the whisker onto the canvas.
If you really want the extra detail, you can also use the Taper deformation with only Z mode active.
After that, it’s just a matter of finding the right material modifiers to get the look that you’re after. Probably something with quite a bit of specularity and maybe a Gel Shade setting of 1 or 2.
Thanks aurick. Your suggestion gave me the right amount of “play” in edit mode to decide what I wanted versus drawing over and over in 2.5d (nothing wrong with that of course) yet having another option is great. Again, thanks. 
Glad to have been able to help. That’s one very dignified-looking cat man!
hey, great image, bb. those whiskers look great!
josh
looks great…
I’m glad you found something that gave you what you were looking for. Good job! 