Yo i've seen some people map the top of the head quite perfectly and i was wondering how they did it. Do they just try and try until they get tge shape they want? Or do they have special drawing program and or tools that let them do that, if so i'd like to know.

Probably using a tori-model in mudbox or blender. It lets you draw directly onto the head, which results in not having much difficulties with mapping.

3d modeling programs help a great deal, so yeah, but I sometimes just use Gimp and use the sphere view to see how it'll map while drawing on the flat

It's possible but you need to experiment, here's why:

Test textures






As you can see the problem area is only 2 triangles big, so it's easy to avoid, I don't think anyone stopped to map it properly. If it's really necessary I can give it a shot though.

EDIT: Actually wasn't as hard as I thought, here is the perfect map:

You can clearly see in the screenshot that the blue edges are where the seam is, and the texture is actually mirrored so the pink edge goes around the outside, while the red edge is actually the very top of the head.

Some very strange mapping and I doubt this could actually be used for anything because of the extreme distortion, but there you go, that's how you map the top of a head.

EDIT2: actually I guess it's not perfect because I didn't write down where the seam between the top tris and the next row are, so you will have to figure out where that seam goes I guess lol...

For gimp, there is a filter called spinning globe which you can do a quick map and see how it looks (There are tutorials online).

Also, there are models if you look in the texture and tutorials section that allow for you to map a little easier