Concept and referencing
Colors, lighting and personality were the main highlights of this artwork. I didn't even sketch out a concept. Everything took shape as I went forward. Although I had in mind a special kind of look, the hard part was fitting the pieces of the puzzle. I collected lots of reference images in order to help me out. I feel it's best to divide or categorize these images according to the elements that are of prime importance, such as the color scheme, eyes, hair, lips, makeup and finally, teeth. (Never underestimate them! I really had a tough time trying to get them to look right.) It's easier to know where you are heading and not letting your mind get lost.

Base color palette
After this ‘sorting out’ stage, I selected the base colors. I love playing around with them! There's so much experimentation. As you can see in the screenshot, I separated the color palette for each element. This way, I can just pick a sample and dabble around with its light and dark values.

Hair brush
Creating this brush was pretty straight forward, nothing extravagant at all! Have a look at the settings and the hair brush test. I reduced the brush opacity level and painted another cluster for a little volume. But still using the same color palette. The additional colors will be explained later, when I start with the actual hair process.

Hair section is nearly complete! Toward the end, I'll be 'blending' in some parts of the hair so that the rings don't look too visible.

Base Color block
This was a very rough block (the inital hair stage) as to how the face structure would look like, all in terms of skin tone, light bounce, colored shadows. With the help of the Pen Tool, I now create the actual shapes of the head and shoulder section. Darkened the neck area and shoulders for little bit of shadowing and light attenuation. Her face now has some soft pink outlining followed by the yellow light bounce on her shoulders. I think I need to tone them down a bit more falloff. I also mixed in some of the yellow/orange tone with her skin and reduced it as well on her shoulders, plus, some slight shading for the collarbone.

I've pumped up the yellow lighting on her shoulder tip, but didn't go all the way to her jaw line or even the neck area. Might've been too distracting! I've also darkened the area toward her ears mainly for the subtle hair shadow and some depth. Even the eye socket and lower lip areas have been treated the same way.