How to Paint Hair on Miniatures: Colors, Highlights and Strand Detail
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Hair frames the face, and a good hair job can make a miniature look alive. The sculpted strands do much of the work for you, so the aim is to bring them out with the right base color, a wash and careful highlights. This guide shows how to paint blonde, brown, black, red and grey or white hair, how to blend between shades, how to treat beards and eyebrows and how to avoid the common problem of hair that looks flat or like a plastic helmet.
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Work with the sculpted strands
Look at how the hair is sculpted before you start. Most miniature hair has ridges that flow in a direction, and your highlights should follow those ridges. If the sculpt has deep grooves, a wash will settle in them naturally and give you instant definition.
Paint hair after the face and skin are done, so that you can fix the hairline cleanly. Use a small brush with a good point, and keep the paint thin so that it does not clog the fine ridges.
If the hair is sculpted in thick clumps, treat each clump as its own shape with a light top and a dark underside. This gives volume and keeps the hair from reading as one flat block of color.
The basic three step method
Start with a mid-tone base coat. Then apply a wash or glaze in a darker version of the same hue to settle into the grooves. Finally, highlight by drybrushing lightly or dragging a lighter shade along the top of the ridges, keeping the brush light so the color only touches the high points.
This method works for almost any hair color. The difference between shades comes mostly from the base color you choose and how much contrast you add between the layers.
Keep the wash controlled. A heavy wash can darken the whole head, so apply it only where you want shadow and wick extra away with a clean brush. If it goes too dark, brighten the highlights rather than starting again.
Blonde and light hair
Blonde works well from a tan or golden-brown base with a pale yellow highlight. Avoid pure white or bright yellow highlights, which look artificial. A thin brown or orange-brown wash gives depth and keeps the color from looking washed out.
For pale or platinum hair, use light grey or cream rather than white as the main tone, and keep the shading cool. Add brightest highlights only on the very top of the strands.
Warm golden or sandy tones usually look better than pure yellow. If the face is pale, a slightly darker blonde helps the hair stand out from the skin instead of blending into it.
Brown and black hair
For brown hair, choose a mid brown base, a dark brown wash and a lighter tan or reddish brown for highlights. Mixing a bit of the skin tone into the highlight can help it look natural against the face.
Black hair should never be pure black on a finished model. Start with a very dark grey or blue-black and highlight with a mid grey, keeping the highlights tight and on the ridges. Cool grey highlights suggest shine without making it look grey.
Mixing a drop of your skin tone into the hair highlight links the two and avoids a harsh contrast. This is a trick many painters use for realistic results, although it is a matter of taste.
Red, ginger and fantasy colors
Red hair needs a warm base, such as an orange-brown or a rich red-brown, with a darker red-brown wash. Highlight with orange or light tan. Check the result next to the skin tone, because strong reds and pinkish skin can clash.
Fantasy colors like blue, green or purple work the same way. Pick a base, a darker shade of the same hue and a lighter tint, and keep the transitions smooth. Vivid colors benefit from a light primer or a pale underlayer.
Try highlighting bright fantasy hair with a lighter tint of the same hue, adding a touch of white only at the very top. Too much white makes vivid colors look chalky and faded.
Grey, white and aged hair
Grey and white hair read well when painted with cool light greys and a hint of blue in the shadows. Use a thin grey wash instead of black in the recesses, because black can make elderly characters look dirty rather than weathered.
Beards and mustaches follow the same steps. A few lighter strokes through the middle, with darker shadow near the skin, creates natural volume. Keep eyebrows in a color close to the hair but slightly darker.
For long or braided hair, treat each braid as a series of small bumps, with a highlight on every bump and a dark line between them. That quick trick gives a woven look without painting every strand.
Common hair problems
Flat hair usually means the highlights are too weak or too even. Add a lighter tone to a few of the top ridges, and a darker one deep in the recesses. If highlights look chalky, glaze over them with a thin layer of the base color to soften them.
If paint has crept onto the face, wait for it to dry and clean up the edge with the skin tone. A tiny dark line between hair and skin can also tidy the area, made with thinned dark brown on a fine brush.
Finish by checking the hair from the side and the back. Those angles are easy to forget, yet they are what other players see across the table, and a quick glaze or highlight there makes the whole head look complete.
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