#i'm so bad at explaining things and if i try to do it unstructured you'll get the longest most incoherent ramble ever

[barbieaiden]

hi! do you have any tips or insights into drawing/editing hair? the hair always looks great in your edits/renders and I have the worst time trying to do it myself lol. thanks for your time!

aww thank you!!<3

well first of all i use this brush and my drawing tablet, i'm sure you can use a mouse but it probably prolongs the process by. a lot lmao, and personally the pressure thingy is pretty essential to me but i guess you could get a similar result with opacity and stuff

my current process is basically using that brush on 8-15px (depending on the size of the image+how close to the camera the sim is) and switch between 100% (maybe lower it to 80% occasionally, especially around the ends) strength to kind of shape the hair the way i want it, it'll go from this to this:

then i'll lower the strength to 80-85% and kind of blend things together a bit, usually not by drawing full strands but instead by going back and forth. i especially do this if the hair has some visible dark parts like aiden's+if the strands from the previous part looks too harsh:

after that i draw some extra strands, usually at 100% if they're longer strands, and 80-90% at the very ends. depending on the size of the image and how close the sim is to the camera i'll lower the opacity on my extra strands. i also add highlights if needed+sometimes blend them in a little, and for certain hairs i like to brighten some of the shadows because they can become extra harsh in blender:

+i go back and redo and paint over things as necessary. i work in way too many layers lmao and lower the opacity on them when it's needed. generally i think drawing hair is just something you need to practice, like i still have a lot of things i could improve in regards to it but i have learnt a lot from doing it for a while. drawing hair is very much one of those trust the process things too so don't give up after a few minutes!!

#maybe this is more of a tutorial but i figured it's the easiest way to give some structured insight hopefully it's not too long!! #i'm so bad at explaining things and if i try to do it unstructured you'll get the longest most incoherent ramble ever #like it'd be worse than this lmao #ask