Color Dodge

One of the brush options you have when painting in Photoshop is "Color Dodge". This is excellent for any kind of glow and magical effects, like the little sparkle spots in her hair on the left side (I think you have to click up to see them), and for drawing little tiny light hairs over dark hairs.

This still needs a lot more work--she ended up with a tiny doll nose and the hair is blobby right now, and I need to fix that little frown she's got going right now. But there will be more sparkles in the background. Color dodge makes great fire effects, too.