How to paint blonde hair?

[Svenn]

I'm working on my next Rotten Belle and I've decided I want her to have Blonde hair. I'm used to painting demons and other things that don't even HAVE hair... so I'm curious as to how to go about painting blonde hair on a model.

I was going to use a yellow and drybrush some lighter yellow or white on it, but I'm not sure that's the best way to go about it. Blonde hair is weird because it's not exactly yellow...

I like the blonde hair on the Nurse in the Nurses pack box (here: http://wyrd-games.net/shop/product.php?productid=16246&cat=259&page=1 ). Any ideas how to get something similar to that?

[greenstuff_gav]

i'd start with GW's Foundation Iyanden Darksun as a basecoat, then a 50/50 Darksun / Sunburst and then keep adding Bleached Bone to highlight it

[DangerousBeans]

I try to avoid drybrushing hair as it looks a bit dusty. I usually paint blonde like so:

- Basecoat Iyanden Darksun or other suitably warm yellow

- paint the highlights by adding bleached bone

- more highlights adding white if you want the "platinum" look

Using a very watered down brown ink, start painting into the deepest strands and keep adding layers until you're happy with the result.

You can mix red ink, yellow ink or what have you depending on what tone of blonde you'd like.

I'm sure there's better ways to do it but this way's fast and easy.

[nix]

For my Candy, I used the following from the Citidel paint line:

1. Snakebite Leather (Base Coat)
   
2. Desert Yellow (Mid-Dry-Brush)
   
3. Gryphonne Sepia (Wash)
   
4. Vomit Brown (Light-Dry-Brush)
   

To make it more of a "bleached blond" you would add an additional bleached bone highlight.

For quick reference, here is Candy:

[shekbo]

For blonde, I actually usually start with tan, and keep my yellow for highlights. This after about five minutes of examining my own hair and trying to differentiate where the "wash" and "highlight" was.

It actually looked pretty decent. Did it for one hollowed waif and Hans.

[Cenotaph]

A lot depends on what sort of Blonde you are after. Here are a few general rules of thumb I use.

1) Never use grey

2) If you want a warm blonde start with a warm brown, I often use a leather colour and work up to bleached bone or warm yellow. Avoid chalky colours.

3) If you want a cold blonde, bottle bleached variety, start with a mid blue and work up to an off white. Don't be tempted to use white except for any real top level highlights.

4) Never drybrush hair, paint it like you would cloth.

5) I usually give hair a wash to unify the colour and reinforce the strands in the model prior to the final highlights. But a lot depends on how the model has been sculpted.

6) A lot of people have bleached blonde hair which tends to show the dark roots at the crown.

7) Think about the period. Fantasy figures won't have bleached or dyed hair and the most common human hair colour is black. Modern and Sci-Fi figures can have any colour or combination of colours of hair. Non-Human figures can have anything you like, so if you want Pandora to have Lime Green hair then go for it.

8) Hair has subtle difuse highlights and shadows. Don't use strong glints as you would on metal surfaces.

Hope they help a little.

[ChaosLenny]

Vomit Brown...for gaming or table miniatures a quick drybrush of like bestial brown over a black undercoat, followed by vomit brown will produce a pretty good looking result right off

[icemantis99]

I go for a yellow, usually darksun +white or something light, with a wash of light brown, then a few more brown washes. I add some highlights with bleached bone or white for the "sunlit" look, then a few very thin streaks of black. Gives me a nice dirty blonde look.

[Q'iq'el]

I think if you want to go for golden blonde, going with something darker than yellow is a good choice for base colour. Snakebit leather, as mentioned, or Tausept Ochre perhaps. It will give better contrast. I've made my Lillith with Darsun Yellow as I wanted her hair to be brighter and unfortunately the contrast is poor.

On the other hand, I still haven't figured how to get that very light silvery kind of natural blond hair. I understand gold blond may be natural, but more often than not what I manage to paint looks like a poorly made bleach with cheap blonde hair paint applied.

[icemantis99]

I ended up painting white/bleached bone with a TINY amount of Mithril silver for silver hair, looked good, but old.

[Guy in Suit]

I just used the Vallejo game color yellows for mine. A heavy sepia wash after the initial basecoat of gold yellow, then re-highlight with gold followed by both sun and moon yellow highlights with a light sepia wash in between. Worked well enough and required little in the way of talent!

[Svenn]

Thanks for all the tips guys. I ended up going with a Snakebite leather base coat, and drybrushing lighter and lighter mixes of Snakebite Leather and Sunburst Yellow (I think that's what the yellow was called, anyway).

It turned out pretty well, I think. It's a darker, dirty blonde, but I like it. I'll post up pics as soon as I finish the model.

[divrg]

with GW-colours i mix about 50/50 graveyard eart and sunburst yeallow as base layer. The use sunburst yeallow on top of it. I then highlight with a mix of skull white and sunburst yellow. Works fine. To get her hair to look dirty you could leave som black in the deepest recesses.

[Svenn]

You can see how it turned out here: http://svenn.tabletopgeeks.com/rotten-belle/

[Zambayoshi]

Nice one Svenn, it looks more like a realistic 'honey' blonde. I think putting yellow into a blonde mix makes it look too fake, especially on a miniature scale.

I'm a fan of snakebite leather, then vomit brown with bleached bone.

[ddot]

While Sven's pics are a bit fuzzy, I can tell he's got the shading down pat on the model's hair. Which is often hard to get right with hair. :cheers:

[Svenn]

Yeah, sorry about the pics. When I was living with my dad I was able to use my step-mom's SLR and had awesome pictures... and when I moved out I've only got my girlfriend's old digital camera. >_<

I'm really happy with how it turned out. It's a very "dirty" blonde... which goes well with the trying to make all my Rotten Belles look fresh from the grave.

[kanerichardson555]

My palette for blonde hair always includes: titanium white, lemon yellow, yellow ochre pale, transparent oxide red and brown, ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson, ivory black (never straight from the tube, but used as a cool to mix with other colors), and my absolute go-to: viridian green

See: https://fashionkit.net/best-professional-toner-for-brassy-hair/