>>302255271
Handyman's Corner is based. Also making a sphere mesh with beard texture and normal map is the best and most optimised way to do it. Layering flat pieces like you would with fringes and bangs would look really weird unless you were going for a beardthulu look. Fur shader probably also a bad idea because it doesn't come out coarse.
I have seen public hair mesh where each strand is its own twisted cylinder but please do not do that.