Nice finish! I dunno how you can do it, I have trouble keeping things such a low Polygon count. I see something and go "Oh, that needs more detail!" and a few hundred vertices later...:(. How did you do the hair? Just a modded Plane or something?

The entire modeling phase is where I determine what goes where, how many vertices, polygons and line-flow are allowed to be in the mesh :P

Yeah, I am the same way, but I make sure I need it lol

For example, I render every single aspect of my models before I determine if the arranged polygon flow matches what I have in mind (so if your model is off or you have weird graphic glitches in your renderings most likely you did something odd in the process like moving a vertice a mile away from the model :P), if not I look at the aspects of how the flow goes together and either edit, modify or weld verts together :P

Having a strong working knowledge of anatomy flow helps dramatically too and knowing what you are getting yourself into :D

My entire phase is comprised of:
Extrude, scale/move, cut/weld/target weld or something else :P

Its just careful planning which gets me quite far lol

The hair was actually clone from a portion of her head, cut and modified further thus given a new material, and I also added and created more polygons to match her hair flow :)

That's a good idea with the hair. That way, you at least get the same basic shape as the head. Yup, and that's where I usually fail: Planning and ignorance of anatomy =P

I failed so many times in the past all because I had no idea where to go :P

Now I plan carefully and there I go :D