Hair Braids

So I have been drawing my character with a braid but have been drawing it in a way that's implied as opposed to actually being shown. I need to know how a braid works so I can render it more realistically on my final digital painting. Here are some reference photos that I will look into using.

I'm noticing that the way the braid starts on all of these is different from how I have been drawing mine. You don't get to see the back of her head in the digital painting but it's nice to know how it would work.