jay - definately, its just a bit laborious sculpting hair clumps and beard hairs

echo red - oh yes, you got it in one I think that has been the most used tool during the hair buildup

bruce dwyer - yep, just a standard cube split down the middle and the right half deleted. Then it was instanced to the other side and the process of creating the head began.
I'll create a very generalised simple head 'blob' soon which will save having to redo the earliest steps of shaping the cube.

Here's a quick update of starting to work the beard. It has helped redefine the chin which looks better now (not that you can see it under there). I've not really had time to get on this in the evening recently (building rabbit hutches and playing travian etc ) but should hopefully get some decent time in tomorrow.