Blender braided beard I'm trying to figure out how to do a braided beard (fantasy dwarvish'ish style, a bit like this: http://dariofish.deviantart.com/art/Dwarf-Braided-Beard-Test2-409580675).

I am trying out the particle hair. But I can't really make it behave. Here's my results so far:


A couple of things annoy me with this result:
1) Each individual strand looks too thick.
2) It's not braided very nice. 
3) The two braids go in a strange direction towards the screen (can't really see that from the picture).

The guy over here made some results I think look much more even:
Large Braids with Hair Particles
But if I try to replicate his settings it all gets much worse. 

Does anyone have an idea what I may be missing in order to get closer to the other SE posters results? His braid looks nice and even and the hairs are much thinner.
Important stuff I missed was:


Use Simple children instead of interpolated for this
Lots of steps in render settings (using 9)
Cycles Hair Settings -> Thickness to get better looking hair (subjective, I know)
Other settings can be seen in image below.




Now I just need to figure out how to get rid of that fur-ball attached to the monkeys chin...