First,make a new image of any size (transparent image,you can make it transparent by selecting it in the advanced options.)
Then make any line or whatever of any colour like this :
http://i49.tinypic.com/2cief0y.jpg
And now copy the layer and make a new one,paste it in and drag the copied layer down below the first layer in the layer box.
Then go to colours at the top,brightness and contrast and make the brightness as low as possible and contrast as high as possible (uncheck the main layer which is red)
So you only see the one that you're making black and od that until it goes completely black.
http://i50.tinypic.com/6hmkcw.jpg
And then finally,check again the red layer and then g to the black line layer and blur it with gaussian blur,you go to filters and then blur,gaussian blur.The you have a cool shade behind the line
http://i50.tinypic.com/2a7exx1.jpg
Now use this on your heads,show me what you can do
Here is a head that I used the same effects on :
The names/terms are from GIMP but this can be done on Photoshop too : P

bump
also,i can mak you a herad like the example for about 6k
bumping just because I want people to make better texts using this tut

cool......

but to expensive for me =(

thanks
well it's really pretty hard to make a head like that

nope -_-, just alot of shapes, copying, and blur

thanks,
good organization of the topic

u dont need to do this tehre is a filter in gimp named Drop Shadow

just go to Filters>Light and Shadow>Drop Shadow

set offset x = 0 and y = 0 and ur done

much easier than this

You can olter everything easier easier like this.
vexon : you don't know how i made it,i didn't of it to make it symetrical.

I think he just wanted to point out that it was hard for you because you have the wrong technique. This shouldn't affect the prize.

Let's say you draw this head pixel by pixel, will probably take a whole day - if you just make the shapes with the pentool and apply a dropshadow it takes 10 minutes.

What version of Gimp is that?