WIP - Head *Update* Finished!

[Gnarf]

EDIT* It's done and I'm somewhat proud of it.  I did the best I could with the hair.  Thanks to those who helped!


If I could enhance the hair some more, then I'm open to suggestions. :]



I'm having trouble with making hair highlights to match the style I'm going with.  I've always had trouble with lighting the head whether it be a drawing or digital art.  I've studied some pieces from pixeljoint but none of them seem to match what I'm going for.  If anyone has a good reference or a technique for lighting the hair, that they could share, it would be appreciated.  I usually stop on a piece when I'm stuck, but I want to finish this.

EDIT - Here's an attempt gone wrong.  It keeps coming out this way:


Any critique would be great, as well.

Also, I realize the nose is out of shape...among other things.

[lief]

Treat the hair as one object, shading accordingly.  After this is finished, pick out some detailed sections or clumps of hair.  A common mistake is to try to draw every strand of hair, which doesn't work well.  Minimal is best, try to shade slightly darker at the roots of a part or strand, and highlight midway along a wave or curve, using this opportunity to give the impression of strands by making the highlight travel up or down the hair strands in different amounts.  Hair will often be slightly lighter on top due to natural sun bleaching.

[flaber]

Treat the hair as one object, shading accordingly.  After this is finished, pick out some detailed sections or clumps of hair.  A common mistake is to try to draw every strand of hair, which doesn't work well.  Minimal is best, try to shade slightly darker at the roots of a part or strand, and highlight midway along a wave or curve, using this opportunity to give the impression of strands by making the highlight travel up or down the hair strands in different amounts.  Hair will often be slightly lighter on top due to natural sun bleaching.

mmm i duno about that?
you can draw nearly everystrand and still make it look not too bad. i just finished something and tried doing strands and i feel it turned out not too shabyy. you need to know though exactly where everystrand is going, when it is overlapped where highlights are, where shadows are. i suggest taking your darkest shade and building highlights onto it. i like to build one colour at a time. first i have the darkest, then i make basic direction with the next darkest, skip a shade, highlight onto the direction lines, skip a shade, and do the lightest highlights. then go back and take the shades you skipped and AA and throw in some more depth to where you didnt touch with the other ones.

also...
offset your highlights too, otherwise your hair will look like one unit opposed to strands. make some strands lighter than others.. and done put shades and highlights exactly same places... offset it abit so you can tell the different lines.

mm. just my thoughts on hair.
although what lief said is good too, just different style

[lief]

flaber, you have improved greatly while I was away.  good viewpoint on another style, it is flawed however.
you can achieve extreme results by drawing every strand of hair.   but by the use of the brains ability to fill in details which are presumed to be present you can get the same impact WITHOUT the drawback of an over-detailed image. 

the human eye tends to group objects and treat them as single objects, next time you look at someone think about whether you consider their hair at first glance as 100000 individual strands of hair.

lack of detail can be detail itself.

[flaber]

mmm, i suppose thats true.
but i also see alot of people with highlights, frostings, different coloured, etc, and it does help to emphasize the different strands.

personally, i dont see one way better than the other. i think it depends on the mood, and style of the picture. some can pull it off, others cant. in order to have the detail of hair you must have the detail everywhere else. but if everywhere else is simple, then use a simple hairstyle.

mmm.. personally i see more of the mid colours in hair.. extreme highlights and deep shadows blend. but its the mid colours that define the hair i feel. by drawing simple, it appears more uniform, perfect..
by throwing in strands, you can add direction to hair flow, you can develope a texture.
mmm i duno..
again i dont feel theres a right or wrong.. it depends on the piece..


oh, and thanks

[Darien]

Well, I for one have never seen an example of pixel work where everystrand was shown that looked good.  I'd rather side with lief here, in that you should draw hair symbolically.  I'm not sure I'd even go that far as to call it a symbolic method; hair tends to clump rather than spread out individually.

I'd critique the piece itself but I'm not exactly sure where it's going; after you get further along I will post again.

[Gnarf]

:] I learn something everyday.  I'm going to go with lief's first suggestion.

I agree that "lack of detail can be detail itself."  I've seen a lot of pieces that pull it off well, and I wanted to achieve the same.

If I read lief's first post correctly, I'm going to try something similar to lief's avatar.  I like the how the highlights blend so well and it adds nice detail to the hair. 

...I'm not going to show it in strands and I'm obviously going to dither afterwards.  I'm hoping it will match with the finished piece.  Thanks for the help and suggestions all.  I'll post an update on the piece as soon as I get done.

[flaber]

dont dither hair
colour in lines, and solids

[Gnarf]

Got it! :]  I was intentionally going to add very minimal dithering but after I tried it, it made the hair look less slick and more messy.  Thanks.

[lief]

I don't think I can see the final image.  *engages terminator vision...  searching.... searching.... *