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Tutorial: Painting Hair in PS
Published: 2006-09-13 18:12:19 +0000 UTC; Views: 285782; Favourites: 7210; Downloads: 48890
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Description
You guys still seem to like this tutorial, but it's old and out of date so I apologise for that. Comments are now disabled, sorry!I had an hour study period at school in which I had nothing to study and I couldn't work on commish without my notes (dA is banned at school for some dumbass reason), so I decided to make this... thing.
The hair is particularly scruffy I think because it was produced within about an hour, and I just submitted this after checking the spellings and grammar at home (I bet there are still typos). Anyway, this might provide a bit of insight into how I produce hair in my digital paintings. Yes, I know, I KNOW this is the trillionth hair tutorial on deviantART, but all I ever see are anime/manga style ones and I have never really found a tutorial for curly hair, so I figure someone out there might find this style useful. Maybe.
Oh yeah, and it's a big image. Watch out, those of you on slow connections.
Or rather, there's no need to watch out, but you might as well go and get a coffee whilst it loads or something.
There is now a part 2 here: [link]
And there is now a fur tutorial
here: [link]
Related content
Comments: 206
WOW! Love this tutorial. It is wonderful that people like you share your expertise with people like me. I am so thankful for it because it is one of the big reasons I don't do much digital art. I don't know how to handle the hair, and my designs all have this fantastic flowing hair that I just couldn't begin to decipher a process on. After reading your tutorial I can see how this would answer so many other questions on how to handle similar items (manes, tails, grass, etc.)
Shininggolden made a interesting comment / suggestion. Does anyone know where there is one (or could someone create one) for braids.
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wow this helped me very very very much!
[link]
i did that after studying this tutorial!
uhh...his hair is supposed to be green....now if only I could get my art to stop looking so anime-like...
your tutorial is very useful! i'd like to see more! but then again, there are much better things to do than make people like me tutorials ha ha ha
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Glad it helped! Nothing wrong with anime-like work though.
I like the style of the face you did. x3 The work might look less anime-like if you use colours that aren't so bright, but... I think it looks fine!
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No problem.
I just uploaded part 2 of the hair tutorial today, if you're interested. It might give you some more pointers on colours and so on: [link]
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WOO! Im going to read it right now! SWEET! thanks for the linkage! you rock!!!
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Thank You very much for this!! Really Appreciate(don't know if this is the write way to spell it) it. ^_^!!
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That's no problem, I'm glad you find it useful! (Also, you spelt it right 
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Thank you! yeah it is very useful!^^
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This was amazing.. and really helpful. ^_^ Thank you for making..
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No problem; I'm pleased you find it helpful (and so sorry for the slow reply!!)
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wow great job, I'm using it on a digital painting I'm working on(one of my first)
here a preview->[link]
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I'm sorry for replying so late! Your digital painting is going really well - you've probably finished it by now huh (I'd like to see
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Heey, looks awesome!
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Thanks for the tut! I've read a few of these before, but never tried one 'til now. As first tries go, it could've been worse. Especially since I used a mouse, lol.
If you want to see, here's my result: [link]
As you can see, I only did one side. I've got a question: how do you go about doing the top of the head? I tried a couple times, and it was a disaster. Hence the lack of head-shape, lol.
Any tips you have otherwise would be much appreciated.
Thanks again. 'Tis a good tut!
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I'm so sorry for the slow reply! You may well have figured out the top of the head now, but I shall give you what advice I can anyway.
If you're doing a full head of hair, it's best to draw the bald head first to give yourself a base to work from. A lot of hairstyles have a parting and the hair sort of rises from either side of the parting just a little, before falling back towards the head due to gravity - I can show you what I mean on a painting I've done recently where it's more prominent: [link]
Where the hair starts on the head tends to be darker too, because of the way the light falls on the head. Also note with partings that the line of skin often shows, unless you have something crazy like a zig zag parting in which case it might not show up so well. xD
Of course, all hairstyles are different - so the best thing to do is to look at photographs of hairstyles you want to draw and see how they work.
That was rambling and useless, really, but perhaps it helped a little bit. Ugh! I hope so.
Also, hope you had a good Christmas.
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Omg, this tutorial is fantastic! Thank you so much, I always wondered how you get that kind of hair in photoshop, where every strand is so defined, thank you so much for sharing your secret with us! 
Just a question though, when you're cging black hair, what color would you recommend using to highlight it?
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Sorry for the extremely late reply! Pleased you like the tutorial, thank you very much for your kind comment.
About black hair - that really depends on the colour of the background and light that is shining on it. Black hair doesn't tend to be truly black - it is usually a very dark brown, so you could use creamy grey/browns to highlight it, and also chocolate browns as a midtone. This can lead to very rich looking dark hair.
If you want black hair that looks sleeker, then I suggest doing your midtones in blue colours (not too bright, sort of grey-blue) and your highlights in colours that lean more towards mauves.
Those are colours that I'd commonly use with neutral lighting, but of course, if you have green or red lighting, you could put tints of those colours in too! The one thing I would definitely suggest about black hair is that you don't use pure black as a colour - just use an extremely dark brown/purple. You can use it to the point where it looks indistinguishable from black, but if you use actual black, it creates a huge sort of void in your work that doesn't look natural. Same with pure white!
Sorry again for the ultra-late reply, and hope that was useful.
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Ah, omg, you don't know how glad I am that you answered my question, however late it was! I thought I'd asked such a stupid question that it wasn't even worth the effort of a reply XD;
Thank you so very much for the advice, I made the mistake of using pure black to color in the hair on one of my deviations, and then I followed the steps in your tutorial, and I couldn't figure out why it didn't look like it was supposed to. This probably the most valuable tip I've ever learnt
Now maybe I'll be able to CG a little better XD
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Apologies again for making you think I wouldn't answer your question! I'm very flattered you think it was such a valuable tip. Good luck with your CGing. 
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Thank you! And sorry if what I said before sent you on a guilt trip, that wasn't my intention at all
Um, just another question, it doesn't have much to do with the tutorial, but it's a question on shading. When shading black hair, if you're making the picture black and white, and you want to shade in white, how would you do it so that you get the kind of effect in this picture ---> [link]
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Ooooh wow yummy
I've been needing one like this thanks!
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+fav !!!! This is just what i've been looking for, thanks so much!
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That is a fantastic tutorial!
Very well written out and clearly illustrated
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Thanks you ever so much for this tutorial. I just got a Photoshop CS2 from a friend of mine and I'm still learning how to use it. I've always had a strong hatred for cell-shading and anime sytle of colouring because it's not realistic and it's just over all kind of lazy looking.
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I'm not that keen on cell-shading either. It doesn't help that I seem entirely unable to do it I suppose.
Glad you liked the tutorial!
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Thank you (and sorry for the slow reply!)
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Although the straight hair is nothing too surprising, the bit about curly hair is excellent! You don't see painted curls like that very often. What's next, braids?
Your commentaries made me laugh
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Oh good, it didn't look like dog crap. I aimed to be entertaining!
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That was really helpful n_n
Thankyoo! <33
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You make it look so easy! xD Very nice tutorial.
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No problem! Thanks very much for looking
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awesome =3
its really nice to see it done simply for curly hair =3 very nice =3
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Thanks hun!
An' don't worry, the commissions are coming, I promise. I'm currently about halfway through the Red Death one. I'll be getting up early tomorrow to work on it before I have to go out.
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Dont worry =3 I know your busy =3
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Very straightforward, and I appreciate the fact you used the basic tools rather than the advanced ones.
Thank you.
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Thank you for looking, I'm glad you liked it.
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me <3 you long time.
PS: get on msn sometime! I missh you!
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Very nice tutorial. You explained very well the steps you take to make hair look natural.
Great job!
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Thank you! I'm glad it went down well.
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Oh my gosh, thank you so muuccchhhh! I love zis, so well made, myes, and I love the outcomes
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