Help with hair rendering

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spazticchild

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Trying to learn hair. It is definitely one of my weaknesses. Mine tends to look like spaghetti... Choppy, stringy, fake. Any help to keep my work looking almost identical to the reference posted would be great help. I'm kinda familiar with using blades for scraping, erasing is still an issue for me. I think I have the wrong ones. Thanks in advance.
 

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That looks like it is a very dark red or even brown. Then you scratch the hair out and go over with transparent red. It will shade the the remaining colour to red and the whites with be red. You can continue scraping untill you have many layers of hair.
 
hey spatzi!!! DEPENDEDNT ON SURFACE YOU ARE WORKING ON, SOME OF THE BEST ERASERS ARE THE FABER CASTELL PERFECTION, THE PINK SOFT ONE AND THE WHITE/GREY/BEIGE, oops just looked up and realised i had caps on!! too lazyto type all that again!, as i was saying, faber castell perfection they are called, initial layers want to be thick paint, very little water and no medium, get the shapes in, the dark shapes with a mix of umber and red ocher, then scratch and erase, then get your mid layers in with red ocher only, again relatively thick, scratch and erase any small highlights, then glaze. this will give you both volume and depth. this is a little trick using household items to spray across/through that helps with hair.... things like garden wire/ties or copper wire.... you can work out how to do that yourself though.
 
I mainly work on smooth surfaces such as license plates and automotive.
 
hey spatzi!!! DEPENDEDNT ON SURFACE YOU ARE WORKING ON, SOME OF THE BEST ERASERS ARE THE FABER CASTELL PERFECTION, THE PINK SOFT ONE AND THE WHITE/GREY/BEIGE, oops just looked up and realised i had caps on!! too lazyto type all that again!, as i was saying, faber castell perfection they are called, initial layers want to be thick paint, very little water and no medium, get the shapes in, the dark shapes with a mix of umber and red ocher, then scratch and erase, then get your mid layers in with red ocher only, again relatively thick, scratch and erase any small highlights, then glaze. this will give you both volume and depth. this is a little trick using household items to spray across/through that helps with hair.... things like garden wire/ties or copper wire.... you can work out how to do that yourself though.

Fez will normally type exactly as it is on the teleprompter.

Exactly what @AndreZA and @ad fez have suggested are your best bets - using a scalpel blade to erase and fiberglass brushes for the softer background hair.
the process AndreZa described is the process that works for most of us :thumbsup:
 
I've never heard of the fiberglass pencil till now. Interesting....
 
I've used fiberglass pencils before, but for cleaning copper tracks on solder.
 
Faber have discontinued the white perfection eraser here in oz apparently. Anyone know of a good substitute that I could use here in Australia ?
 
I just purchased one. I'll be playing around with it asap
 
Faber have discontinued the white perfection eraser here in oz apparently. Anyone know of a good substitute that I could use here in Australia ?
Staedtler also makes a hard white one. It is painted blue and has the little plastic brush on the back.
 
Red scotchbrite to get an overall texture, more so where highlights are, you could always go over with a transparent to push back any scratches you don't to be prominent.
Still use a scalpel for the more intense strands though,
Hope this helps a bit :)
 
When i do hair i build it in stages. I start with the darker areas first to lay in the shadows. Then i give the area an overall misting. Come in with my pink faber castell eraser and start building the direction and shapes. I do this a few times without following what ive done before to build the depth. Once i get the direction, shadows and shapes where i like it, i take my xacto knife and start putting in the strands, wayward hairs and highlights. I did a little demo for someone awhile back to show them the process i use to go about it so when i find them i will post them up for a visual (no pun intended) lol

We all have our techniques so take your pick and go at it Spaz!

Heres the pics. They go in sequence to what i was describing. It was a rush job as i was doing this demo over facebook so its rushed lol Hope it helps buddy!
00339_Capture.jpg 00340_Capture.jpg 00341_Capture.jpg 00342_Capture.jpg 00343_Capture.jpg 00346_Capture.jpg
 
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Very nice vis.. Now question... If I was using a few colors for the hair, would I do the darkest, get the flow and texture, work to the next lighter color, then work that one with the eraser, then lightest?
 
Yeah i would just work your darkest color first for the base, then as you start erasing in the detail you can mist it with a transparent to meet the color saturation of the lightest colors. Just look at it and break it down to what you see as far as the layering of color in your ref. Just work the hair as if you were pulling it forward in each layer with the lighter colors. Just how i would go about it.
 
Kool, in my mind that's how I envision it. But when I tend to do it, it looks like brown or blonde spaghetti vomit... Lol
 

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