Have look at the horse that needs mane. I tried using a hair card.
What exactly are you aiming for? Stylistically, the second isn’t far off the rest of the model. Perhaps just a few refinements would do the trick?
I am going for stylistically, because I want the model used for game model.
I tried giving it paint.
Can you make the ends of the mane ‘hairs’ pointy? Perhaps that’ll bring it more into spec.
It might help to render out hair cards made of a particle system for more realistic textures. For example, I made these feather texture cards in Blender with particle systems from a tutorial.
Generally, realistic character models take forever. I spent like 3 days on this bird and it’s still not done. 
I will have to learn more about particle systems in blender.
