About one hour of fucking around. Lots of blurred shapes at low opacity.
And a bit of experimentation with d-mesh. Hexagonal pattern fill + big square + 4×4 mesh. Distort until it mostly fits on the shape of the head, then constrain it to only overlap the head with a clipping mask. Then be too lazy to finish off the edges of the hair to make it clear that it’s a solid shape, with corners and thickness.
I might work on this some more, might not. Really I wanted to do something a bit more painterly but I ended up deciding that a modelled drawing of Rita just has to be all airbrushy; she’s a sleek, smooth thing.
(Also I totally suck for not making sure the shapes actually worked as a drawing before getting into the modelling. It was super easy to get lost in details and end up with some seriously weird proportions; luckily Illustrator made it easy to pull things back into shape. If I want to try this again I should really get the full figure all set up before getting into this kind of stuff. Which is, um… basic drawing logic? Hey, like I said. Fucking around.)
Wow, excellent… I know it’s been years and years since you dabbled with 3D (since the Amiga days, right?) and when you got back to it, you’d be sure to make it your own – and it certainly looks like you’re getting there rapidly!
This is actually entirely hand-drawn! I’m sure getting somewhere here if you’re mistaking this for 3D.