Had a lot of fun with this challenge. Started with some blobs and then tried to create a design from the most interesting one. Hope it is not too late for submissions

Hello, My entries for the challenge, really struggled with it and feel that I learned a lot. Tried to experiment with different techniques to see which effects I can achieve. Done in Procreate, using hard round brush and smudge tool. Two of the thumbnails (and reference photos) contain hidden peacocks. Reference photos taken during random walks around a city.

Edouard Caplain

Hello everyone, thank you for this challenge, here is my submission:

Something that you can try for hair: split it into into bigger shapes first before adding details. You can more or less see several bigger “waves” (which can be abstracted as cylinders) on the side of the head that is facing us (hopefully attached image can explain this a bit). And after you render these cylinders you can add shadows for individual strands. This will break up the shape but individual hair strands will stay conforming to the base structure of cylindrical waves