Tutorials for painting hair?

[Greg Ellis]

Does anyone know of a good link or two showing techniques for painting hair on minis?

Something beyond the basic basecoat, wash, drybrush method I have used before.

Once I get my faces done, I\'ll be thinking about hair next.

Something specific to black hair would be especially helpful (since that one seems very tricky to me) but any colour is ok. I\'ll probably do some brown and blond as well.

 

[DaN]

I\'d actually say blondes are among the most difficult to get looking realistic

 

[Temporary Sanity]

And redheads are the easiest (at least for me)

Sorry, don\'t know of any tutorials right off-hand. Best I can offer: find another mini painted with hair you want to mimic, and mimic it.

If you\'re doing black, make sure your highlights are very thin.

 

[Ritual]

When I paint hair I start with painting the whole thing in a mid tone colour (possibly slightly darker than mid tone).

Then I shade and highlight it as if it was a smooth surface (that is, I disregard the texture and single strands of hair completely). I use a colour tone that is somewhere between the base coat and the final highlights.

When this is done I use the mid-highlight colour and trace out the single strands a bit from the highlighted areas into the darker areas. But I don\'t go too far, into the really deeply shaded areas.

Then I go further with the highlights and now it\'s time to pick out the texture in the light areas by running the brush along the strands of hair.

This way you get a more natural looking hair by avoiding too high contrast between the highlights and the grooves between the strands of hair.

 

[No Such Agency]

I\'ve recently started using a totally different and IMO more realistic method of doing hair. See THIS and THIS as examples of what I mean. It basically sounds like the \"treat it as a single surface\" concept mentioned above.

 

[Greg Ellis]

Thanks guys, excellent examples, and very much what I was thinking of.

Ritual, I just saw your Forest Nymph for the first time. Wow! She\'s absolutely stunning!

And the paint job is nice too

Kidding... really, very very well done. I\'ve saved a copy for inspiration. But I might need to crop out a few parts, to keep her from distracting me too much.

 

[Ritual]

Thanks! Don\'t crop out her bum, though... I\'m quite proud of that one. :innocent: