Blonde hair/ Highlighting Black

[Bobman]

I did a search but didn't come up with much.

 

My painting skills are somewhat lacking, so I was looking for a decent way to paint blonde hair and highlight black. My attempts at blonde aways turn up too yellow, while my black highlighting has always been done with grey or dark blue.

 

Thanks for any help.

[winterdyne]

A good blonde recipe:

 

Khemri Brown basecoat. Highlight by adding a little golden yellow/bleached bone mix (1:1) into the khemri brown. Then highlight again with pure bleached bone. Some sharp highlights to give glossiness with bleached bone/white mix.

 

The trick with black (indeed generally dark) hair is a wide, subtle highlight (almost imperceptible) that gives the tone, and then very sharp, caustic highlights. The recipes below are a little complex for tabletop use (where generally a black/brown, drybrushed a bit with a grey/brown will do), but are sort of where I'd start thinking for a competition piece.

 

Black (Dark brown caucasian) hair: Highlight by adding a little scorched brown for a wider highlight, then work up to very sharp highlights with bleached bone. North and Western European / Scandinavian people don't (by stereotype) have a high incidence of pure black hair naturally - it's usually a dark reddish brown, often more apparent when catching the light (in fact it often gets bleached by sun pretty easily). Once you start moving towards Asia and Africa (ie eastern europe, the middle east, mediterranean area ), the incidence of 'truer' black hair goes up.

 

Black (African / Asian) hair: Wide highlight with charadon granite, or 2:1:1 black/scorched brown/codex grey. Work up to very sharp highlights with bleached bone. A watery black wash will knock things back a bit. What you see as 'black' hair is actually just really glossy (hence the reason some people percieve it as blue-black, as it's reflecting the sky). To model this we have a super-dark wide highlight (just enough to throw it off an unnatural charcoal black), and work to very fine, very bright highlights. If you're having trouble getting them small enough (they do need to be really tiny) then use a darker, larger highlight to average it out, but this can take the 'life' out of the hair, making it look matted, dirty and generally not as nice.

[Shadey]

Yeh, you would think you would need yellow, but you don't for the most. I don't use any yellow at all (though snakebite leather and bleached bone do have a fair amount of yellow in them which is the colours I use).

 

I am interested to see if winterdyne's recipe works though. It sounds intriguing.

[winterdyne]

Pretty much that exact recipe:

 

http://www.winterdyne.co.uk/maz/images/commissions/victor/gideon_done_1024.jpg

[djhg]

When painting Black I start with Adeptus Battlegrey as a base, highlight it with Space Wolf Grey then pure Skull White.

Once that's all done, apply as many coats of Badab Black wash over it until you are satisfied that the look is dark enough.

You can apply Chaos Black to the deepest recesses for more defined shading where you feel it might be needed.

 

The overall effect is an 'off black'. It looks more Black than grey.

Not a pure black which when highlighted can end up looking more grey/blue/whatever colour is used to highlight it.

 

p.s. winterdyne, that is some exquisite brushwork you have going there...