Cry for help: polygon hair not rendering right

[SaltyCowdawg]

OK, it is probably me (usually is) but I'm having issues getting the polygon hairs to properly texture/render/whatever. The issue I'm seeing seems to be particularly bad when using blond has the hair color. Here is what I'm experiencing:

not looking very nice...

and here is the node setup I'm using (Cycles)

Hair nodes

any suggestions welcomed...

[duststorm]

The black is because you have not enabled alpha transparency input on the texture.
How exactly to do that with cycles, I have no idea. You will have to google it.

[N.O.A.]

...Is this not solved yet?

you need to plug the alpha of the image texture to the fac of the mix shader that mixes the diffuse with the transparent... well it works for me that way
hope this helps

[duststorm]

N.O.A. makes a good point. You need to map the alpha of your texture (completely to the left) to "something".
Whatever that something is, I do not know (I lack experience with Cycles), but I am very certain there should be a connection to that alpha channel.

You should try whether N.O.A's solution works.