Pasta Hair Disaster

[Hawkmoth]

I'm really struggling with portraits of women, and the biggest problem every time is HAIR! Curly hair, straight hair, layered hair, I've failed comprehensively at them all. I just can't get it right.

I think I'm working it too much and that I should reduce it to a minimum of detail to keep the focus on the face (which generally turns out better) but I'm just not sure how to do that.

Can anyone help me? (Suggest a tutorial or an artist to look at, or better still, give me advice from your own experience of portraying hair).

Here is a typical example. In this case, her beautiful tumbling curls have ended up looking like tagliatelle in some areas, and spaghetti in others. I ended up darkening the hair a lot (in an attempt to fix it) so now the face is too light in comparison. Any help you can give me will be very welcome. (Please be honest. I'm not fishing for nice comments, I really do want help.)

 

[Lazarus]

Beautiful.

 

[ams]

It looks good to me but if you feel the hair is too "spaghetti" like, you could try not making the darks in her hair so dark. Make the shadows more subtle so there isn't so much contrast between light and shadow within her hair.

Another trick I have used with animal fur is to put a soft, light color wash over the hair after it is dry. It softens all of the edges within the hair.

 

[snoball]

Go to Youtube and search "painting hair in oils" and watch a few of the videos. There are many techniques that can be used to paint realistic hair.

 

[Trier]

I'm of no help with the hair, but I think it is a beauty as is.

 

[ColorEnthusiast]

As Anne said, softer edges would help. In reality you do not see the single hairs, but they make the edges of the strands fuzzy.

 

[Hawkmoth]

Thanks for your comments folks. Some good advice there which will hopefully help me when I try to re-paint all the hair disaster portraits (there are several!!). Please keep the advice coming! Anything which might help will be welcome.

As Anne said, softer edges would help. In reality you do not see the single hairs, but they make the edges of the strands fuzzy.

I think softening the edges might be good. I'll try that. Thanks Esther.

Go to Youtube and search "painting hair in oils" and watch a few of the videos. There are many techniques that can be used to paint realistic hair.

Thanks snoball. I'll take a look and see what I can find. I don't use oils but presumably some of the same theory can be used with any brush medium.

It looks good to me but if you feel the hair is too "spaghetti" like, you could try not making the darks in her hair so dark. Make the shadows more subtle so there isn't so much contrast between light and shadow within her hair.

Another trick I have used with animal fur is to put a soft, light color wash over the hair after it is dry. It softens all of the edges within the hair,

Thanks Anne, this makes total sense. Of course now I think about it, he dark/light contrast creates the impression of an 'edge', thus creating the dreaded spaghetti effect! I will try reducing the sudden contrast and also lighten some of the darks. I know it'll be difficult as my painting style normally is all about looking for areas of light against dark and exaggerating it!

 

[Artyczar]

Great advice here. I was going to say the dark bits too, like making lots of contrasting values, which could be time-consuming depending on how rendered you want it. I think this looks really great though. Excellent job!

 

[Hawkmoth]

Not sure if anyone is interested enough to be following this thread, but I've tried to use the advice you've given me (and also Youtube and a book), and I've done another attempt, focusing on the hair.

The curls are still not great, but overall to me the hair looks better now. Honest opinions on the hair, please (I know the face is bad, I was mainly focused on the hair).

 

[JessieNebulous]

I can commiserate; hair is SO confusing to me! I understand you're supposed to focus on hair as overall shapes rather than individual strands, but when it comes time to actually do the thing, I end up doing strands again.

But I definitely see improvement here. I think you're on the right track.

 

[Artyczar]

I think both attempts are good in my book. If not great. One just tuned out differently in style, as I see it. I never thought of spaghetti in the first one though (that was your word). The second one might have better lighting showing how how the light will dissipate as the hair come down from the head. Looking at this even teaches me that. I say thank you and good work!