Furring, and shading.

[miyavi]

I've been experimenting with a bunch of shading/furring effects but can never get exactly what i'm looking for; mostly comes out either as light chunks, or just plain out blurs. Even if I get the furring how I like it, then I run into the problem of shading over it ;;

Does anyone have any good tutorials on hand for this? I want a more realistic look, but can be on the more cartoony side. I just don't want it to end up looking how I described in the first paragraph.

Thank you!