Painting fur can be easy if you go the drybrush route. And it doesn't look half bad either. But if you really want that "finished" look, try line highlighting each strand.
I know, I know, shouldn't it be about making things easier and not harder when it comes to painting. Yes and no. In this case, I figured I'd share with you how I highlight fur if I'm going for that super clean and finished look and trying to avoid that "drybrushed" look.
With the model above, I went this route because the individual fur "pieces" are slightly larger than usual and sometimes just drybrushing can bring out unwanted texture and make the piece look unfinished or sloppy.
Don't get me wrong, drybrushing has its place, sometimes though, you need to bite the bullet and go the extra step to get the really nice results and skip drybrushing. Now this model is a one off so I don't have something like three or four squads to do and I can afford to lavish some attention on his details.
I start with painting the whole fur area black. It helps that black was the color I primed my model with as well. You can see the cape portion is already done, so it was just a matter of cleaning up some edges really.
Now you'll need to know the color scheme of your fur in advance. In this case, I'm going from light tan at the bottom up to black at the top.
The first layer is a dark brown and I start with it at the bottom. I carry that color up about 3/4 of the way to the top. As I get closer to the top, I don't apply the paint as heavy (or thin it as needed) so my actual color is closer to black. You don't need a perfect blend here, just get it close enough.
The next step is a lighter tan. Again, starting at the bottom and working my way up to the top. This time only going about half way. This should leave some of the first dark brown layer as a transition color between this layer and the black at the top.
Next is a pass along the bottom 1/4 with a real light tan color. This will be the lightest the fur gets on this model.
And last but not least is a very quick pass across the very top in the black area with a dark grey color. This is to give a little highlight to the black and add some variety to the area. You want to make sure you don't go down into the brown so it's just a matter of hitting the very few top pieces of fur.
