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LauraHollingsworth β Hair Coloring Tutorial
Published: 2014-07-17 23:57:01 +0000 UTC; Views: 326549; Favourites: 12256; Downloads: 5741
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Description
All characters from the coloring examples are from The Silver Eye webcomic , by yours truly!Download to see the super huge fullsize file!
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Resources
The most handy hair structure tutorials are this video by Proko and this blog post. These are useful for thinking about the direction hair locks flow with different styles: 1 2 3 4 5 | Painting Realistic Hair | Shading with gradients: 1 2
Tutorials by me including: Gimp Brush Dynamics , Coloring Eyes and Coloring Method .
Final Thoughts/Dissing of smudge tool
As I was looking for other hair tutorials to plug, it made me sad. Sooo many of them recommend techniques that leave you with blurry hair, whether from the smudge tool, the airbrush tool, fuzzy brushes, or brushes with low opacity. I think rendering with only the smudge tool on hair is the Comic Sans of digital painting and it's a sure way to make any painting look amateurish.
When I first started digital painting I wasted months and months on the smudge tool. It only made ugly art worse and stole time away that could have gone towards getting better at Ye Trusty Paintbrush Tool. It might be a tool lots of people use, but smudge gets no mercy from me.
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Comments: 397
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I found this useful to understand better detail for hair, Thanks!
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Interesting!
(Also, yay, a GIMP tutorial!)
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This is perfect if it comes to all hair colours except white. It gives me hell. Can you give some tips, please?
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Here is an example of a white haired character that I painted:  Here is a value scale: www.beginnersschool.com/wp-con⦠With white hair you need to be gentle with your values, it doesn't have much contrast. Based on that value scale, I would have most of the hair in mid values at 2-3, some brightest highlights at 1, some shadows at 4, and maybe a few strands at 5 in the darkest part of the shadows, but I wouldn't go darker than that (unless the lighting is super baroque and dramatic). White hair is also very reflective, and it takes on the hue of its surroundings. That's why it has a teal tint in my example instead of being pure greys. I always incorporate a bit of the background color like that when I'm painting white hair. I hope this is helpful, let me know if you have any questions!
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Β Excellent, thanks! Sad to say I use smudge tool quite a bit; happy to learn a new technique
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I really love this tutorial! But what magic gradient brush do you speak of??Β
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Do you mean the gradient tool? (I made this tut three years ago, I don't know if I said something about a gradient brush 
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Yes the gradient tool. Is this in photoshop or paint tool sai? (Or neither. Also thanks for responding!)
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This is in gimp, but both photoshop and sai (and really most art programs) have a gradient tool.
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Oh! That's awesome that that's in gimp! Thank you!
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Awesome tips! Thank you so much! I have tried the smudge tool and it hasn't helped, this looks like it will though!
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......gradients......
AH THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS IT IS ACTUALLY VERY HELPFUL
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Gradients are my best friends! You are welcome!
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Seriously though. This actually is helpful.
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Finally, a tutorial I can follow! Yay! Thank you so much.
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Thanks so much for the tips... I am never touching the smudge tool nowΒ Β
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That's what I love to hear!
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The first guy in the brown hair category looks like Jesus. And also really healpful tutorial!!
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I'm trying to place all the TSE faces I don't recognize...
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SO HELPFUL!
This answered a lot of my questions and gave me a lot of ideas!
Thank you so much!
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hey there's nothing wrong with the smudge tool, especially when you're coloring with just a digital mouse...
But thanks for the tutorial XD
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digital drawing with a mouse is like traditional drawing with a ballpoint though.. ;;;
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Thanks for making! The large one i could not open. Can you check?
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It worked for me. Here is a direct link to the image file: orig15.deviantart.net/d94a/f/2β¦
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this was so helpful to me, you have no idea
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This was a big help! I was looking for answers at 1:21 AM and stumbled upon this...thanks for the insight.
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lol, same here- difference is it's 1:22
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I was just looking through old art tutarials I pinned and I was like "wait is that Carswell Thorne's forehead?" then I saw levana and Kai and realized that you were the artist of those incredible fanarts.
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Lol! Good eye!
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You're welcome!
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The method is essentially the same. The gradient you start out with just goes from nearly-white to a middle grey. I like to give the grey a slight blue-ish tint in most lightings.
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Ahh
Thank you! Okay then
I'm gonna start being amazing! Γ²uΓ³
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