Hello everyone. I have created a tutorial on shading a person’s scalp hair in digital art. I have made this tutorial as hair can be a really tricky thing to capture. I remember when I started out I really struggled with getting the hair right, but I practiced a lot since then and I can fortunately say that I have greatly improved my skills and have decided to make a tutorial to teach others on how to shade the hair.
Humans have three types of hair. Dark (Black), Intermediate (Brown), and Fair (Blonde) coloured hair. Blonde hair is the most rare hair colour and is often seen as a sign of beauty. It can range from a copperish rusty colour to a yellowish golden colour. This kind of hair is most common on Northern Europeans, but can also be seen on Southern Europeans, Middle Easterners, and Central Asians. Brown hair is a somewhat common colour of hair. The colour range for this can be wide and lighter shades of brown are considered blonde in some cultures. This kind of hair is seen on Europeans, Middle Easterners, Central Asians, and Mestizos. And Black hair is obviously the most common hair colour and is found on every group in the world. The reason for this is that our close genetic cousins, chimps and bonobos, are also black haired indicating that our Last Common ancestor with chimps and bonobos most likely had black hair. Black Hair can be divided into two categories. Brown-Black, which is seen on groups with more hair colour diversity. Such as Europeans, Middle Easterners, or Mestizos. And Blue-Black, what is seen on groups with less hair colour diversity. Such as East Asians or Indigenous Americans. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’ll be going over the darker Blue-Black colour. And I’ll be starting off with black hair as it is the most common hair colour and once you can shade black hair, you can shade any hair colour.
IMPORTANT REMINDER
Before painting I really recommend using a hair brush. Not only will the end result look more realistic, it just makes the hair shading process much faster and easier. I also recommend turning on greyscale. In most painting softwares this can be done by making a new layer, turning the blending mode to “Colour”, and then filling it in with white. This will allow you to see the difference in values between your reference and painting. And lastly your painting doesn’t have to look exactly like the reference. It just has to look believable. Hair can be a messy and chaotic thing to capture, so just focusing on the main shapes for the foundation.
BLACK HAIR
To start off with Blue-Black hair, use a cool tone. Blue is ideal, but purple and green can also work.
Find the light and shadow areas on your reference image.
Next, put in your shadows. This is my personal choice, but I like to cover the whole hair in shadow so that it can have the depth when we shade it more later on.
Following that, put in your lights.
Now, we are going to refine the light and shadow areas. Start from the big areas and work your way down to the smaller details. Follow your reference image and remember to check values by turning on greyscale.
You can skip this step if you want, but once you get the values, you can take a lighter colour and softly go over the darker areas. I like to do this as Jet Black hair can look kind of flat if your only going by your reference.
Now blur the main hair layer so the edges are softer and not as hard.
From this point we are basically done. You can further refine the to the hair by adding strays, colours, and what not.
BROWN HAIR
Brown hair can be tricky as it is neither too light nor too dark, but by evaluating reference images, you can gain a better understanding. To start off with Brown hair, use a darker orangish tone, as brown is technically a darker hue of orange.
Find the Light and Shadow regions of the hair.
Now I am going to fill in the base shadow.
And the base lights.
And now from here I will begin to refine the light and shadow areas. Notice in my reference there are a lot of strays and chaos? I am going to ignore that for now in order to focus on the main picture.
Now that I have refined the light and dark areas, I will then add the strays and the more messier hair clunks
Now that we are basically done, we can then further refine the hair by adding strays and adding in the extra colours.
BLONDE HAIR
Now for the most unique hair colour. To start off use a lighter yellowish or orangish hue.
Now find the light & shadow areas on your reference. The reference I have has trickier light & shadow area as the whole hair is under flash, but we can still deduce the lighter and dark areas.
Now I will add the basic shadows.
And then the basic lights.
And now I will refine the hair. Because we are looking close up, there will be more values seen. Therefore this one took me a bit more time to do.
Now I blur the hair, add strays, and add colour.
That is all, I hope you found this tutorial helpful.