[maxwell]

Here's a picture I'm working on; I'm stuck as to how to proceed with the hair and refining the picture in general. I stated off using a photo reference from a magazine, but it didn't look very similar so most of it I did ad hoc.

Max

[Mime]

hello, for the hairs look at the tutorial Dhabih just posted : http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/ubb/Forum2/HTML/006506.html

About refining the pictures, i think myabe you whould add more contrast in your shadow parts of the face, and maybe more value (not only different variation of pink/orange) but im not sure im beginning myself with choosing values.
WHen you will be happy with your basics you can start to refine.
for my last image what i did was resizing the pic to a double size, and then i took some hard edged brush, with the stylus set to opacity mode, and i started to repaint the thing, choosing the color with the color picker and doing more smooth edge transition by mixing the colors at the seams (but not using smudge or blur, just making a new color with a brush not at the max opacity.
after i had refine a first time with a big brush i refined again with smaller brush mixing the colors more and adding more detail ....

i dont know what to tell you anymore, im not expert at all and im not very good in explanations ... and im not sure my method is good ... i just did this way and liked it

i hope i was of any help