Holly Problems!

So... As you can tell from the title.. I am running into problems galore on both projects..
here is a list

Sucker:
1) hair referencing and scaling problems
2) Fur referencing and scaling problems
3) flickering and more flickers
4) corrupting files :)
5)time
6) etc.etc..

Hamster
1) paint weights
2) scaling issues
3)time
4) etc.. etc..

but there are plus sides!
I have succesffully set up around 8 scenes for render.. setting up lighting, passes, and everything else.. Now i have to continue setting up hair and eyebrow passes.
We recieved the hair on time so this is a good sign and now its just getting stuff set up to rendered and then getting rendered

Mostly its the farm that has been giving me problems with this project. The farm is bumping my render times up due to the fur, and it will just for shits and giggles not show textures every once and a while.. so you nkow 60 minutes later bamn i find out its not working and have to set up again.. Althought things are hectick things are getting done, This will get done.. well I hope
below are 2 frames on a rendered scene we have.

Note the fun dust we added :)

As for the hamster i have set up a comp of and learned a ton.
A) DONT DO PASSES WITH FUR.. based on what I have recently read my and own mistakes.. fur passes are not the way to go.. It causes premult and you loose ALOT of detail in the needed detail fun areas!..

Now.. As for the rest... I have a rigged hamster but needs paint weighted and i am rushign the guy but dont know when thats coming to me.. As for animation we have dynamic test animation but this is where the problems arise.. Scaling issues from when i set up to the fur to the scale of the model now have arose. Fur in houdini doesnt like when you scale you objects.. all the maps drasticly change even if the topology doesnt change on the object. So this means i have to go and repaint all of my maps based on the new size.. so pretty much redo the whole hair set up again along with rendering and animation

Comp'd shots are below :


so here is my predicament.. I feel i wont beable to get both of these projects done in time for the end of the quarter (2 weeks. ) I really want to finish this hamster and push it to its fullest so i hope next quarter to finish it and leave it behind for this quater.. Along with this fur proect i am staring another one so i will be able to work on both together and learn a heck of a lot more..
plus shoot bg plates etc.. all at the same time... Hopefully this is all possible slo i can atleast have one finished piece ( the animation piece) By the endo f the quarter