painting blonde hair

[sven]

hello all,

as the title says i would like to know the best way to paint blonde hair, and what coulours should i use to get the best effect. if it makes any differance to your answers i am painting wood elves.

thanks for any replys

phil

[Odium Khan]

Blonde hair can be rather tricky, but it depends on how realistic you want to go and what type of blonde you want to achieve. I've seen decent results with a 50/50 mix of white and yellow in the base, shaded with flesh or chestnut wash. I used some different light base colours on my wood elves as I wanted the variation of different shades of blonde. I used Vomit Brown for some, Bubonic Brown for a few and even Bleached Bone on the odd platinum-blonde wood elf. The colours came out somewhat closer to animal pelts than to hair, but that was mainly due to the technique (dark base, highlight w/drybrush to same extent all over, no wash) I used.

To achieve realistic blonde hair, you have to highlight lighter towards the end of the hair and retain the dark shades at the base (at the head). Unless you do this, you get the pelt-effect that I did. This is because blonde is very prone to sunbleaching. Many blonde hair tones look brown when cut short and it's not until it has reached a length of 10-15 cm that it becomes light. I'd therefore recommend shading with inks or such only at the base of the hairs and leave it out over the main length.

[sven]

hi odium,

thanks for you advice i am gonna paint a few this afternoon i have bubonic brown so ill try that first, thanks again

phil

[Barks]

I always had difficulties but have found a way that works for me. It is a medium brown basecoat, drybrushed with a pale yellow, then ivory, then white.

I doubt this will help, but the specific colours are:

Jo Sonja's Provincial Beige
Folkart 905 Buttercup
Folkart 902 Taffy
White

[Tritex]

I have had some great results with blonde hair - many types:

I always paint with white undercoat then as already stated depends on the effect. If you are after a really bold blonde best is to wash with a bright yellow and dry brush white - looks good on women.

Alternatively for a strawberry blonde wash with light orange and drybrush yellow and finally white on tips as suggested earlier.

For more natural blonde it has to be the brown base coat & yellow highlights though.

Avoid the temptation to go too dark on the wash as the with blonde highlights just look daft.

Usually it is better to use a darker base colour on the skin if using blonde so you get a good contrast. or border the hair with a light brown wash instead. Good Luck!

[sturmjarl]

OK,
I paint over black undercoat and get surprisingly wonderful results by dry brushing bleached bone, followed by a 1/2 bone/skull white at the tips.
Then I do a 'glaze" or 2 of REALLY watered downed brown ink starting at the roots.

[juck101]

dont forget to put a touch of flesh colour in the mix as this will help it match the tone of the character. Predominatly blonde hair and lighter skin colour is pretty common so dont paint any amazons with blonde - unless its a bleach look.

[RollD6]

I think my formula is a variation of those mentioned.

I start with base (primer) white, then sunburst yellow.
The final step is a really, really watered down dark brown,
used like ink. It gives you highlights and lowlights just like
real hair.

I have not tried my latest love, that being walnut polyeuthene stain,
but that should work too.

TTFN,

John

[Chairface]

walnut polyeuthene stain

Hey RollD6. Welcome to TBB! Can you tell us more about this please?

[sven]

hey rolld6

welcome to tbb thanks for your tip that is what i did but i could not work out what to use for the final highlight. so cheers, oh and yes please tell me som emore about polyeuthene stain.

phil

[Duke Jan]

What would really be interesting is some examples of what the different techniques achieve. So, does anyone of you have pictures?

[RollD6]

Hello and thank all of you for the warm welcome.

The stain I use is Minwax polyshade satin one step antique walnut. Here is a website to the product.
http://www.minwax.com/products/onestep/ ... -color.cfm

It is important to get the 'satin' finish so things are not too glossy. Here are the basics and it is really simple if you are familiar with using inks.

Paint a miniature in basic colors and keep in mind that colors will darken when you stain them. DO NOT bother to shade or highlight, just keep the paint one color on each item. Greens, reds, metalics, whites, light browns all work great with antique walnut. Once the miniature is painted in a simple scheme, paint over it with generous amounts of stain, or dip the entire mini in the can then shake off excess (outside on the grass away from other buildings and such). Then with a medium brush, pull out the excess from recessed, pocketed areas. The more you take off, the clearer the coat and more detail you will leave underneath. Work fairly quickly, things will start drying in about 15 to 20 minutes and you will notice a geltin effect on the surface. Allow to dry to 8-10 hours and you are done.

I originally read about this technique at the drunkdwarves sight, when looking for ideas on painting my Tyranids, check it out here.

http://www.drunkdwarves.com/pages/artttgttcdipping.html

I am just finishing a converted Skaven BB team, so let me snap some pics and post in a day or two.

TTFN,

John

[Drax]

the results shown in that article look awesome.

[Tritex]

What a great idea using stained varnish - and what a result. I think I will try this. Thanks!

[sturmjarl]

Those Tyranids look surprisingly GREAT!!
Yup,
The old "dip method" is what a lot of the older historical gamers have used for decades, but fantasy/sci-fi kind of dropped using non-water soluble solutions with all the youngsters getting into those games. Figures the parents would probably prefer their children to avoid using such solutions, but now those same "children" are now adults and rediscovering the "older" tricks of the trade. I've never tried it myself, but those tyranid results speak for themselves!!