Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=143270&Start=1&Sectionid=14&WhatsNew=Yes

This is my second try at painting hair, and because I obviously need to learn a lot I would like to hear what people think looks wrong, or should be improved. Thank you. :)

there is nothing wrong with that hair! Good job!

In my opinion its very good.perhaps a bit less at the lower end the rest is really beautifull

Only problem I see is it could use more hilights on the top and left. It doesn't quite look like it's being lit by the same light as the figure, and douesn't look like it's casting enough shadow. Otherwise, very nice. A touch of red or auburn where it catches the light might be attractive

I don't think there's anything wrong with it...much better than my first attempt....or any of my current ones for that matter....

Thank you already for the comments. :) leather-guy I was doubting if maybe I should add more highlights. Thank you. :)

In the spirit of positive criticism, i want to say that your color work & strand texture are coming along very well! To improve, may i convey some experierence from classical painting? Please let me suggest that one begin by thinking of the hair not as strands, but as a mass, first, that has to be lit and so, like the body it adorns, has light, midtone, and shadow areas, apart from its texture. If you were drawing with pencil and paper, i would say to sketch a boxy version of the hair shape first, and refine the drawing later... but you get my drift. If you render a hair object without transparency mapping, you would see exactly this modeling. You know that the key light is falling from the upper left to the lower right, principally--you would know, you rendered her! So, the hair will have a highlight (i don't mean in the beauty parlor sense, but in the 3D sense :^)) on the top, and left. The midtones would fall around her crown and on the left side, and the shadow area would be in the lower right, furthest from the light. If some of it were blowing in back of her, it would catch the key light and be modeled similarly. Now, most detail and color is revealed in the lightest areas, along with the specular highlights. You will see less detail in the midtones; and the shadows should remain dark, thin, and mysterious. i recommend putting your texture-y work into those highlights & midtones, and leave the shaows alone, thus creating contrast and interest. You already understand color variation in the hair itself, and that strands float on the breeze and how it moves, generally, which is good--because that's hard to describe in words! Keep up the good work! i hope this helps! Please show us more as you go along!

Thank you nfredman. Your comment explains a lot, so I find it very, very usefull. :)

Rynn, you've done a very good job already!!! My only point is that you have to paint your hair on a bigger image. Now the few hairs that stick out still look too thick. That's the mistake most make... painting thick hair which looks quite good as a mass but hair is very very thin in fact. The bigger your image is rendered that you work on, the thinner the hair will get. I usually render my images 2000 x 1800, resolution on 200/300. Also you see a highlight on the left side of her right buttock, so that indicates you should make a highlight on the left side towards the middle, on the top of the head/hair. The shadow on her back is still the same as it was without the hair, if you know what I mean? Because of the hair the shadow on her back and shoulders should change also. All little details that will make it more realistic looking, IF you want to go for the realistic look that is! All in all, you've done a great job... my compliments! Regards, Johnnie...

very good work - whish i could do the same ...

You're very welcome, Rynn! It's a lot to absorb at one time--the Reader's Digest version? Now i need to post a demo pic, eh? :^) Here's the first. i picked a warmer colored middle tone, to differentiate it from your work, Rynn. This is the hair's main color. Then i picked a color lighter & closer to the color of the sunlight for the light areas, and a darker brown for the dark areas and just massed them in roughly. i made it hair twist a bit because i imagine a lovely breeze lifting her heavy tresses. (ahem!) i do use a pressure-sensitive tablet--i have a Wacom here at work, but i use a good but cheaper Wacom (what the heck is it called?) at home. It's very hard to do this with a mouse and get line work/brush strokes that look remotely real. Oh yes, i use Photoshop, too.

i was using a soft round brush at about 9 pixels to paint with. Now i make the brush 53% opaque, and start working with strokes into the light and dark areas, blending but letting the strokes suggest the strandiness (is that a word?) of her hair. i never use a blur or a fingerpaint (smear) to do this. This further models the hair. See, you can feel the weight and texture of it this way.

i'm not going to try to finish this, and i know that there are plenty of folks around here with much better technique for doing the finishing brushwork! But please bear with me. At this point, add the light highlights--a very pale yellow--and even more importantly, the dark accents. The dark accents should be not a hair color, but a very dark tone of the ambient, or sky color--much cooler than the hair. (i put little swatches of the dark accent and the light accent at the top of the picture.) The cooler color makes the dark parts recede and blend into the picture--very important! Note: Putting very dark next to the light makes a sharper edge than putting light next to mid tones. i also paint this cooler dark color into the dark hair color, making it recede further. Also important--pick up colors from the blended parts of the hair, and use those strokes to blend further. Again, no blurring or smearing used--hair not being a smooth surface. i'm still using a 53% (arbitrary number, but something moderate) opacity brush to paint with. The direction and weight of the strokes--the tablet is essential here--suggest the strand texture of the hair. Notice that i do not paint detail into the dark parts, just into the light & middle tones. The direction of the strokes is very intentional, though i let my hand move freely in putting them down; they will suggest the movement of the hair. You can have a lot of fun at this point refining your strokes to get individual hairs to stand out in the light areas, but i would reserve the extra detail for the light areas. If you look around you, you can only *see* texture in the specular highlights on things, so that's how i paint it. Sorry about the download time for the pictures, but i hope you liked my little show. :^)

Again, thank you so much everyone. I can't believe how much you guys helped me out. :) Swannie, you mentioned a few things that I hadn't thought about yet. Especialy the shadows the hair should make on the body of the figure. nfredman, thank you for all the effort you took. I really appreciate it. I bought a graphire 2 two days ago. I'm glad I did. I also use PSP7, but most things that are done in photoshop I can do in PSP I think.

Graphire! That's what i have at home. Jeez, getting old is hell on the brain cells. ;^) Yep, PSP will do the trick, i think.

nfredman That is a wonderful demonstration! It would make a marvellous tutorial!

Attached Link: http://www.cooltuna.com/poser/hair-painting-demo.html

i've posted a version of it to my site, and the Tutorial section here. i hope it's not too terse...

Hey, that's a great tutorial. :) I bet lots of people will be happy with it. :)