My entry to @kothy's Braid Drawing contest

@ Kothy made a post on how to draw braided hair - something that seems so simple but is very complicated to draw. I am working on changing my profile image into something similar with what I already have but of my own creation. Coincidently I have been wanting to braid the hair in my image therefore I found this tutorial very useful. Blow is the image and the steps I took to make the braid. Although @kothy asked us to draw, step by step, how we drew the braid, I did not realize this until I finished the first 3 steps while I was drawing the mage in pencil. Fortunately I colored my image with oil pastels so I recorded each step I took using the pastels.

Pencil drawing:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

I used a gold yellow for the first layer which in the end will show up as highlights.

Step 4:

I added a second layer of two different browns (Raw Umber and Vandyke Brown) and used Russian Blue to add more shade.

Step 5:

I used a nail to texturize and add the highlights (the gold yellow underneath the darker browns). It is a drawing in progress but at least I got the hair down. Thanks @kothy for the tutorial.