Painting Hair
Using a lot of different colors in the hair will make it more true-to-life. I know that when you look at the directions you will say, “Huh?” , but believe me it really will look good when it’s finished.
I usually take the darkest color and streak it in where the shadows are going. Don’t be careful – just streak in the direction the hair lines go. If it is a curved line make sure that the streaks you put in are curved. If it’s a straight line, make sure the lines you put in are straight. This adds to the hair to make it look more real.
Next take the next lightest color and streak it in, then the next lightest color, etc. When you get all the colors streaked in, one on top of the other, you can go back and add a little to shadow color if you need to or to one of the other colors that you think need more. It doesn’t really matter if you have a few little streaks that have no color on them. They just look like highlights if you’ve put the colors on in the shape of the hair.
When you’ve got it so that you like the colors as you have them, then go back and add a couple of strokes of the highlight color (the lightest color) to give it that little extra dash of dimension. You could, also, streak in a little 340 or 341 at the last, to give the hair that alive and shiny look. The easiest and least scary way of learning this is to take a piece of material and practice for a few minutes on that. The most important thing is to ‘not be careful’. Don’t draw the lines in – feather-stroke them in. If you go out of the lines that are drawn for the hair it just makes it look better. It looks more like hair if a few little feathery strokes show on the outside of the lines. (At least that’s what my hair looks like.)