Nah, I kind of blocked it out first, then tried to add individual strands and highlights on top of it. I spent a lot of time just adding on top of it and re-working it.
oh wow man you've outdone yourself. Very nice job. While you may think you are lacking in the hair, I think it does work so it's not completely bad. I do kind of wish the clothes had a few more features to them other than a solid colour but other than that this is a very good piece man. Keep it up!
It seems like it keeps the same opacity all the way through. It sets the shape of the nose, but it looks awkward; you could try smoothing the edges of the shade around the septum so that the contrast with the base skin color is subtler.