dacort - Hair Tutorial

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Step Four: Refining the Hair

Drawing Hair: I generally use three colors to draw hair. As on the previous page, I start with a dark base color, then proceed to a medium and finally a light color ("light" is relative in this sense, actual color brightness will vary depending on the image). During the rough-in stage, I may erase unwanted parts of the hair prop as I described on the previous page, and I may also draw in rough outlines of new hair strands. For most hair drawing I use a single-pixel brush, but during this phase I may switch to a wider brush to save time. Once the basic hair shape is satisfactory, I begin drawing individual strands in the dark base color. I draw strands one at a time. This may sound tedious, and sometimes is, but really doesn't take all that long. I try to remind myself that the amount of time I spend making the image is nothing compared to the amount of time it will spend being done. When I'm satisfied with the dark strands, I proceed to the medium and light colors. During this phase I often turn the opacity of the brush down to 20-30%. This makes it require more strokes to cover, but each strand will appear finer than it would if the brush is 100% opaque. This is especially effective when drawing the odd stray strand. The final step is the most fun and visually satisfying, I think. I use the burn and dodge tools to add highlights and intensify shadows. It never ceases to amaze me how cool this looks. And to think that for so many years I used to ignore the burn and dodge tools, thinking, "What are those good for?"

Here's another example of a raw render with an untextured hair prop, again the Omni hair by JeffH.	In this case I wanted light to show through part of the hair, so I used the eraser on the layer with the hair prop at reduced strength, to let some of the "bald" layer show through. Then I started to rough-in some free floating strands using a semi-transparent brush.	Now I have begun to draw hairs strand-by-strand in the dark base color, following the contours of both the hair prop and the rough strands I drew in the previous step.


I have now switched to the medium color and drawn more strands.	Now I'm drawing in the lightest color. Once this is done there won't be any more individual strands to do. Yea! Notice that the hair still looks kind of flat at this point.	And here's the magic. Use the dodge tool to add highlights and the burn tool to intensify shadows. I use a low exposure percentage (around 10-20%) to avoid overdoing it. It's better to make several passes on a low setting. When it's done, the hair looks much more 3D, and fits nicely with the rest of the image.