I would put this in the wip gallery, but it doesn't seem appropriate since it's not, and yet I don't want to put it in the finished gallery since it's not (noticing a pattern?), so I hope no one minds too much I'm putting it here (not that it's the first of its sort to be posted in here). Anyhow, after trying different techniques, this is my latest attempt. I haven't decided yet what I think of it, and probably won't until tomorrow, but it was pretty fun to do, and my poor tablet has been feeling neglected lately (it told me so). So, all of my rambling aside, I'd appreciate some comments. I'd like to at some point do this with a real image, but I find I am usually disappointed with the look of my painted hair because it looks so out of place when I do it, whereas an actual hair model looks better, even if it's blockier. It just seems more natural to the scene than some "soft" looking hair butting into it. Does that make sense? No? Ok, I'll shut up now. :)

Attached Link: http://www.theattic.nl

Heya whoopdat... It looks pretty good, but it still got that rope-feel about it. Hair is very very thin, as you know. You have to make your renders as big as possible (I render at 2000 x 1800, 200 pixels), save it as a .psd and make a new layer in Photoshop (or another program, although Photoshop gives you the most to work with) to work on with the hair. Use smudge, burn and dodge tool to get the desired effect. A hairdo has got darker parts but also highlights. At the moment I'm working on a new hair painting tutorial, but my old one is still on the Attic ( http://www.theattic.nl ) It's from my early days when I just started to paint hair. I think my technique is much better these days and I want to share my way of painting hair with others. See a recent example of what I did here: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=107398 If you want to know more send me an IM or mail me at info@theattic.nl Good luck, Johnnie...

I agree, hair is not hard it is more a matter of patience and lots of layers. Don't forget that hair grows on your head in such a way that you see many layers when you see hair, so the light and the wind conditions are important...even with thicker hair you eye is looking for the strands to make it "realistic". I get that by also using many different layers, then changing the layer characteristic between luminosity, multiply, darken, burn, overlay etc. you would be surprised what screen can do to add depth to the hair...or to give that halo of strands look...keep posting your progress!...

Good start! I'm not nearly as good at painted hair as a lot of the talents around here, but let me give you a couple/three tips: A pressure sensitive tablet and a program that actually works will with it, like Painter, is a big help, as you need to vary the with of the curls, get fine ends and stuff. Photoshop isn't especially good for this. Painter's "Just add water" is great for the carefull blending you have to do too, Photoshop's smudge doesn't cut it! Work in other colors, do hairs as darker lines, with ligher on top, to give you some detail in the body of the hair. Work in highlights on the curls the same way, and shadow detail. Think "hair, hair, hair, light and fluffy" as you work!

In addition, the hair looks almost like it's a flat object superimposed. Try to make the outside edges darker, to better convey the "depth" of the hair.

Thanks for the comments and support. :) Lemme see if I can address everything real quick: I actually rendered that at 2000x2000, but I think because it's a full body render, it came out kind of small. Perhaps cranking it to 3000x3000 will help. Noted. :) More layers? Hm...ok...I was working mainly with one layer. Will try the multiple layers approach then, and maybe I'll get a better variance with the colors on the hair. Painter huh? I've been using PSP since it's in my price range, but I've been told PS is the way to go. So, uh, no on PS huh? Interesting...I know I have a copy of PS that came with my tablet, and maybe Painter as well. Perhaps I'll look into those. I think that more or less sums everything up. It's a lot better than some of my earlier attempts, but now that I've had the chance to sleep and come back and look at it, I agree with the lack of color. It looked better to me last night (isn't that always the case?), but I see lots of room for improvement now. Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions. I'll keep trying.

I know where Jim is coming from with Painter, but it's common knowledge that everything Adobe Photoshop developes Painter imitates. And just take a look at the pro-illustrators... I can tell you by knowing a few very good ones, that they use Photoshop. But having said that, Painter is a very good program in which you can achieve the same result. It IS really the technique you use to get a good hairdo on a poser figure, not only the program. I have tried to figure out what the most important things are to put in my tutorial and it's kinda hard. You just have to start and try, try and try again till you get the result you wanted. It's much easier to explain it to someone when they sit next to you. And I already did teach a few on how to paint hair. Good luck with your development. Keep us posted! Regards, Johnnie...

Don't get me wrong, I like Photoshop, I use Photoshop, I (often) teach Photoshop, but it isn't especially good for hand painting, and the smudge stinks. With Painter you can have brushes that vary in density (it is sort of hard to describe!), while PS just has hard or soft edges on the stock brushes. At one time Painter "Classic" was being bundled with scanners and tablets, I think they were selling it for $50 or so, too. In a lot of ways Painter peaked at version 2X, so you don't need the latest and greatest for this kind of hand work. I've never uses PSP, so I don't know how that stands. Johnnie is right though, it really is you, not the program.

Attached Link: http://www.theattic.nl/hairtutorial.htm

I have about 60 different kind of brushes and the Natural Brush really gives a great end to my hairs... well, the [painted ones](http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=107398). Hehehehe... Gee, sounds like a shampoo commercial! ;-) The smudge tool does a perfect job for me here. But the trick I use is to not set the pressure too high. And using a smooth strokes with it does help a hell of a lot. Like Jim mentioned, the graphic tablet is really awesome for that. No illustrator does without. I got a lot of reactions on how I can get my painted hair look so good at the ends. So I must be doing something right in combination with Photoshop. But really, no problems here with the smudge tool... it does its work perfectly. And I couldn't have judged about it if I didn't also use the Painter one... hardly any difference, only maybe that it's easier to work with the Photoshop tools all in all. Especially that of PS 6.0... But... I can't say it enough, if you get the hang of it it's you who does the job and the program is only there to put it on the screen for ya!

Oh, and Jim... don't want to start with this as like "I'm right and you're wrong", cos I'm not that kind of a person, but take a look at these three examples of awesome Photoshop artists:

• Blackwater
• JYL
• Socar Myles

Examples on how I want to paint one day! Please, take a look and enjoy! Johnnie...

Hey I use Painter, photoshop and psp7, all of them offer different tools and for hair I like the following: 1. Photoshop: the layers and ability to paint with a few hair brushes as well as the tiny brush for detail. 2. Painter...I love the graphic pen, if you use a variety of pen patterns turned down really low and vary the layers you will find some stunning hair effects...boa, giraffe, and even the graphic patterns sized very very small are terrific and using the layer options will spice up the hair...the brushes are great too as was noted by Jim Burton. 3. PsP7 has an excellent smudge tool, it is better than photoshop and mixes the colors very nicely...the brush feature is harder to work with in terms of getting that nice tiny detail for a hair by hair approach....but you can do almost as well with the smudge tool by pulling the color layer by layer.... 4. I like the lighting in Painter and PSP7 for the layers you can focus the light on a layer for highlights... I would build up using PSP7, photoshop then painter pattern pens for the tiny detail...and probably back to photoshop for a final touch up... but PSP7 is a good tool and I did get some nice hair results in that program....just take your time ...also do not forget that you can use the erase tool if you build using the layers....

Yeah, the PSP brushes are awful for detail on hair. You can never get the edges soft enough and end up with hard lines that you have to rework. The smudge and caustics are pretty efficient though, and the layers and interface are more intuitive than Painter. Painter can be a dream, especially with the camelhair brushes that can do multiple strands at once, and graphic pens and special effects can produce nifty results. I hope Santa gives me a tablet for Christmas.

Johnnie- They look great, but I'm always unsure what I'm looking at on all "Photoshop Artist", is it real, or is it memorex? ;-) The mermaid was 100% had painted, parts (the torso) were done overtop of a B&W scan, but there are no pixels in it from the scan. Photoshops painting tools always seemed crude aproxomations of Painter's to me, but it is partly what you are used to, I'm sure. With Painter I can put a dab of red on the skin and work it into the whole area, just like you can with real oils on real canvas, I never get that kind of control with Photoshop's smudge tool. To each their own, I'm sure! I hardly use Painter anymore (I do most of my artwork in mesh these days!), but I used to really enjoy it. It is a shame they interface got weird in version 3.