When it comes to rendering people, few things are as important as hair. Nothing stands out as much to the viewer as badly painted hair. On the other hand, if you do it spectacularly well, it may legitimately be the centerpiece of your painting. Usually, however, you just want the hair to fit in with the mood and composition of your rendering – an integrated part of the whole.
Because of the fact that every painting is different, I have come to this conclusion: everyone should have at least two or three ways to render something as important as hair.
So, here’s one you can add to your arsenal! This particular method is very painterly, and in fact is almost exactly how I often paint hair in oils. It is also pretty quick, which is always handy. Finally, it can be thought of as a method that usually “blends in” rather than “standing out”, which is most often what you’ll be going for in your pictures.
This technique works best with a pressure-sensitive pen, rather than a mouse. You can use a mouse if it’s all you have, but it’s a lot tougher.
First, I start with a scanned in drawing layer, layer set to “multiply”. Then, I put in some basic tones on the layer below:
Smooth it out a bit (I prefer to use Painter’s “grainy water” brush for this step, but you can do it any way you like):
Then, on a layer above that, in multiply mode again, I lay down some basic colors. Here is how it looks in “normal” mode, just to show the process…
And here it is the way I actually see it while working, in Multiply mode…
Now comes an interesting part – I use the dreaded Smudge tool! Many successful artists don’t like it, but used well, it’s very useful. I use it exactly as I would use a brush on oils – it moves one color into the next. But use it sparingly! I use SHORT strokes with my Wacom pen, and set it so the Pressure is sensitive, so the harder I press the more smudge I get, and with a very light stroke, it only smudges a tiny bit. Again, I think this feels very much like I’d do it in Oils.
First, FLATTEN the layers you have so far, and then smudge away!
Note that I went with the flow of the hair, and just smoothed out what was there in the pencil and colors. Go with the direction of the hair at all times!
