I've been spending the last 3 weeks learning hair groom in Blender and creating a character likeness. Blender hair particle system has some limitations to it, e.g. no multi-layered modifier (multiple clumping and noises). But in my opinion, it's very beginner friendly with the fact that you don't have to deal with any scipting at all.
Character likeness has been a struggle as well since my reference IRL person has very limited high quality pictures online. Also I was working with Reallusion workflow, which is very limiting. I couldn't freely modify my character facial features like I used to do in zBrush. My goal was to create an easy workflow to create a character without touching any rigging even once. That way, I let Character Creator and iClone do all the work for me. I wasn't really that satisfied with the result but it's still an experiment and a learning journey ✨