I spent part of the day trying new settings. Unfortunately, it isn't quite as simple as "make her bigger."

Most of my tests had translucency (inside the SSS controls) set to 50%, but taking it down to 2% actually gave me better lighting through the ears. I don't understand why.

All of my previous images with SSS have had intensity set to about 25-30 percent, but in order to get realistic results I believe this needs to be much higher, so it's at 100% in these images. Without changing SSS color, though, you end up with a character that looks like a giant fetus, so to equalize this I've used a considerably darker color than before (on the HLS Wheel it's H: 99.68%, L: 14.99%, S: 29.99%.)

Perhaps this is too high, maybe 70% - 80% would suffice. I still haven't been able to achieve a blood red color within the ear, and am running out of settings to change. If I make the SSS color redder to get red ears, the whole skin is affected. If I correct this, the ears are no longer red (I realize not every shot of a cg character is going to be realistic with red ears, but I'd prefer to know that if a light is in the right place and bright enough, my shading is going to be fairly accurate and will produce good results.)

Of course this is partly due to the fact that I'm trying to give less-than-paper-thin surfaces the appearance of mass and volume. Perhaps my only option is modeling an interior mass for the ears, and possibly the rest of the body, and assigning it a seperate shader.