I really do like makesquiggly, but the only thing missing are the tendrils. Pulled my hair out for several weeks, but got an insight of inspiration. After running makesquiggly, I ran EyeCandy's Fur filter (I know; cheat; sometimes you just have to but I did run this filter in GIMP using PSPI; lol), followed by Rodilius. I then used shellout to run AAA's Good vibrations (AAA filters won't run in PSPI so this is a true cheat; lol). I then blended the result with the base and voila (well some hue adjustments with a solid target fill too).
ref:
http://www.fontplay.com/freephotos/ten/fp080407-04.jpg