Digital Hairstyling

This workshop will guide you through the process of painting hair in Photoshop using the correct brushes and a streamlined workflow. By John Kearney

Have you ever wanted to paint hair in Photoshop, but didn’t have a clue where to start or how to go about it? In this workshop I’ll give you an insight into the process I use when painting hair for my fantasy characters. I will guide you through a reliable workflow, and give you some useful tips to provide you with all of the necessary fundamentals needed for painting hair. I really recommend using a digital graphics tablet for this tutorial, because a tremendous amount of subtlety will be needed from your brush strokes in order to accurately paint a convincing hairstyle – trying to do it with a mouse alone would be incredibly daunting and difficult. To follow the tutorial, you’ll need to know how to create custom brushes, so dig out those older issues and familiarise yourself with the process if you don’t already know.

Hair comes in so many different colours, shapes, and styles, that it would be impossible for me to provide you with comprehensive information on how to paint hair types ranging from wavy perms to dreadlocks! Therefore, in this workshop, I’ll focus on how to create a stylish hairdo from start to finish that utilises many techniques relevant and applicable to any hairstyle you can imagine. Once the basics have been digested, you’ll be able to adapt many of the techniques to suit your own needs and those of the task at hand.

Click here to download the full workshop for free (PDF) Click here to download the support files (12.51Mb)