The following was made as a trial run for future work, using basically the same ideas on hair as have been discussed here before: mesh strips with an alpha texture, shaped by armatures. Sorry for the unfancy model. Anyway:
-The main body of hair is just an extruded and separated “helmet”.
-The bangs and ponytail are separate meshes (all copied from one original), that are UV textured with a black-and-clear alpha texture.
The main difference is that when making the hair texture in the GIMP, I used a little bit of alpha at the top of the texture image, and a bit more at the bottom. The center part of the UV texture is solid black all the way across, so that the hair only wisps near the end, and at the point where it meets the head.
Here’s the texture, if any of you want to have fun with it, though I’m sure there are GIMP painters out there who can make much better ones.