One of the greatest features of v13 is the new hair and shaders! I have never, ever been able to make decent 'helmet hair' so this was a great blessing! I've been toying with it considerably (check out my Butthead model) and I am very pleased to say that if your not updated and using this new feature your really limiting yourself. Here's my latest hair-do on a WIP along with the settings.

You'll notice I use 3 emitters. I give each one a slightly diffrent color and highlight. I adjust the length of each as well along with the density. The 1st gets a density of 150% and is about 35% length. The 2nd gets density set to 250% and the length is set to 45%. The 3rd if density 275% and length is set to 48%. Hope this helps someone. I hope to do a tutorial on hair soon.

Lloyd, it doesn't appear as if you've a Hair Shader enabled in that rendering. (I say that because the hair doesn't appear in image to be shaded but I also can't tell if that's a "final" render or an interface capture.) Could you let me know which Shader (if any) you have selected, and whether you have Shaders turned "On" for rendering?

No shaders enabled. It's a chor rendering. I'm still learning about all the great plugin shaders. I'm working with them right now seeing which looks better, which render faster, etc.

Current render with shaders enabled 9:00 minutes and counting........original only took 5 minutes....

Okay, did I do something wrong. I used GradientLight and Brushed for the plugins. I did this in the settings for rendering.

greadients work best for thicker hair like in toon shading

(older hair test i did)