How I did Xenar's hair [Tutorial]

Discussion in 'Signatures' started by ARCHIVED-FadetoGrey, Jan 24, 2009.

  1. ARCHIVED-FadetoGrey Guest

    I'm pretty convinced this was a fluke, and I'm really not that good at hair painting. But I have all the layers in Photoshop up, and I got a lot of comments on it (Thank you all by the way!!) so here's how I did it, and who knows, maybe it will help someone!

    PHOTOSHOP CS2(All steps done on a separate layer)
    [IMG]
    1. Pick your palette: I usually use 5 colors. Pick your base color first, then two shades for highlights and two shades for shadows from the base.

    [IMG]
    2. Clean up: Clean up your image so you're ready to work. You want to cut as much hair from the screenshot as possible so you won't see it under your new painted hair. (Don't mind the shadow on her cheekbone - I burn for shadows instead of painting them on another layer... tee.)

    [IMG]
    3. Make your base: Using your base color, draw where you would like the hair to go. Make sure that you don't color it entirely because then it would look flat and there would be no room for the shadows. Also, keep the wisps and stray hairs to a minimum, as you'll be doing that when you get to highlights. (I mean, unless your character's hair is supposed to look ratty. o_O). 5pt. round brush.

    [IMG]
    4. Shadows: Using the first shadow shade, go under the base hair layer and just scribble under it where you left the empty spaces. 5pt. round brush.

    [IMG]
    5. Background hair: Draw around the other side of the face and a few wispies of equal length on her shoulder. 5pt. round brush.

    [IMG]
    6. Highlights: Using your first highlight color, draw finer strands of hair in the direction you'd like the style to go. 3pt. round brush.
    [IMG]
    7. Moar highlights: Using the brightest color on your palette - the second highlight color - add more fine strands in various places, but not too much to cover the base. At this point I add the wispies! :3

    [IMG]
    8. Shine 1: Use a thick round brush and go over areas where shine would hit her head. Then set the blend mode to "soft light" and use the "Guassian Blur" filter to your discretion to get the right shine.

    [IMG]
    9. Shine 2: Duplicate that shine layer, and blur it just slightly more. YAY MOAR SHINE!


    And that's how I did her hair. :3 If anyone has any questions, please ask - I'm horrible with tutorials. ;_;
  2. ARCHIVED-Seagoat Guest

    I have a question!
    Do you work at 1:1 scale when you're painting the hair, or do you zoom in? I'm thinking of the practicality of making big sweeping strokes versus smaller ones on a tablet...which is easier to "control?"
    PS: What other brush attributes are you using (like hardness and opacity)?
  3. ARCHIVED-FadetoGrey Guest

    Haha I zoom in to 400%. And my brushes are at 100%, 100%. If I need to adjust the opacity, I just do so after the layer's drawn. :)