This next step is the most important. Find the areas of highlight. These are at the points of the hair that are the farthest UP, and the farthest DOWN (the convex and the concave, to use the technical terms). Also, remember that on most heads there is a distinctive “ring” of highlight at the top.
Just take a brush at 50% or 60% opacity, and blob on your highlight color (in this case, it’s the same as the hair color, but lighter and yellower). Notice how these blobs go AGAINST the flow of the hair in all cases:
This next part takes some practice. Using the Smudge tool again, make back-and forth motions over the blobs. Again, these strokes are WITH THE GRAIN of the hair. Also, note that I stroke ONCE and don’t go back, even leaving some of the original blobs untouched. Don’t overdo this step! Use quick strokes of varying length, and don’t go over an area twice.
Next, I stroke in some individual hairs. I use Painter for this step too, as I find it draws long lines better (smoother) than PhotoShop. You can do it in PS, of course, but it’s just easier for me in Painter. Just be sure to use a brush that has no texture, and make sure (if you have a stylus) that the size is being controlled by pen pressure.
Once some hairs are in, I often go back and add just a few more highlight blobs. Here’s an intermediate step, with extra blobs in place:
Final step: Again just as in oils, I glaze on some colors and shadows in places. In PhotoShop I do this by choosing a color I want (like some red or some Umber) and setting my brush to 10%. Note that the top of the hair is darker now, and some selected areas are more strawberry than others. This makes it look lively.
Also, note that I left the top of the hair almost untouched through much of the process… You don’t need to render everything to the same level. This adds some spontaneous hand-drawn feel to your picture, and makes your more highly-refined areas stand out even more. Or at least I think so!
I go through at the end with the Dodge/Burn tool set at a low level, and “zap” any areas I think are lacking in punch. I agree that’s a nice touch at the end of any painting. I also go through with the brush tool and add the brightest little highlights at the end. The final highlights are close to pure white, but shaded with a bit of the compliment to the color they are highlighting.
The final picture can be seen here: http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=43339
Well, that’s it! One last note: as with any tutorial, you’ll find a lot of general technique ideas here. I’d invite you to use these ideas to render other things, not just hair – you never know what you’ll come up with!
Article by Patrick McEvoy.
