Sorry, I haven't been getting notifications for this thread.

RedPhantom seems to have you well in hand. A few thoughts.... 

The render time can soar to almost unrealistic lenghts if you leave "emitter" on for the hair.

The mesh density has a direct effect on growing the hair so you may need to change settings across body parts if the mesh density changes so that you can keep an even look across the entire prop. The lower the mesh density, the better the hair looks. IMHO

For patterned hair like a leopard or zebra print you can plug the texture into the hair node both root and tip instead of the blonde shader that is there by default.

Hair does grow perpendicular to the polygon.  Image included.

Don't try growing hair on a dynamic object. You will be long dead by the time the calculations finish.