student practice

[walkerVFX]

I am a current student and I am taking my first Visual Effects course right now. I have decided to major in Visual Effects and this is work for my art test. I am happy to accept any critiques you have, but I cannot accept specific help or instructions.
I am trying to reproduce the patronus effect from the Harry Potter movies. Using multi-streak particles with a volume curve field I have achieved the movement that I would like. However, I am having a problem getting the particles to streak together to make a silk-like look if that makes sense. I have tried multi-pass rendering and motion blur but am not getting the look that I am striving for. Any critiques are welcome! Thank you.

[walkerVFX]

I forgot to post the reference. The part I am re-creating in this shot is the first camera movement before the cut.

[walkerVFX]

I have changed my process a bit. The original way was not giving me the movement that I wanted at all. I created three separate curves. I then used a flow curve effect on each of the curves. This process has gotten me a lot closer to my desired result but is still way off.
I created the particle effects in Maya and added some color and different effects in Nuke. Any comments and critiques would be greatly appreciated. I am a beginner and would like to improve in any way I can.

Thanks,

Here is the link to my most recent work on the project.


http://vimeo.com/11123074