Welcome to Gaia! ::

1. The first thing you need is a head. It's very hard to draw hair without one! A mistake I see very often happens when people draw just the face, or start with the hair, and it dips in on top... not like a normal hair-part, but rather, like a valley. *_* This will not be a problem if you draw the head first. ^_^ If you just draw it lightly, you won't even notice it once you get the hair on there, so don't worry about it distracting from the overall picture, and don't worry about having to erase it.

2. Now comes one of the most important parts! (so this step will be a bit long. whee ) You just have to draw the basic shape of the hair. No matter what the hairstyle is, (long or short, male or female...) I want you to use loose, flowing strokes... just relax, and don't worry about making it perfect right now. Real hair does whatever it wants, so you'll want keep that in mind while you're drawing it. Trying to control every strand will only make it look stiff and unnatural. Pay attention to the overall shape that the hair makes, especially if it's long. This could be an important part of your composition*.
Now, more specifically, to make quick and easy hair, something I do often is to use two kinds of lines: some that are fairly straight, and some that are more curved. Drawing these kinds of lines together will automatically give you nicely shaped strands of hair. Don't worry about connecting them at the tips, they'll connect by themselves, or you can fix it up later. But I may be getting too style-specific... you don't have to do it this way if you don't want to! It's just a way that I find useful for getting nice shapes, and giving the hair some body, instead of worrying about it looking thin and limp.
*ex pics: long girl hair, spiky boy hair, lina inverse hair, Ritsuka hair*

3. fix-upness blaaaah~~~~

4.

Curly hair: Curly hair comes naturally for a few people, but for most of us, it's just a huge pain in the butt. Most of these steps apply to curly hair, but of course there are a few crucial bits of information missing. *blahblahblahSaysomethingusefullGuacamole!* understanding structure, blah~~.... http://www.deviantart.com/view/10018492/ http://www.deviantart.com/view/5228382/ x

*Composition: The combining of distinct parts or elements to form a whole. In art, this refers to how you fit all the things in your drawing onto your paper, and ideally, try to unify them so that they all relate to each other and fit in an eye-pleasing way instead of looking cluttered or boring.

(under construction, editing and example pics coming soon! -o- )

A thing that would really help is pictures.

ditto lol