Basic Hair Tutorial

Here's what we'll be making. Or at least, the hair is. (Base)

I generally do the hair last, so if you do the same, then do the rest of the doll. If you do the hair first, just get the base. If you do it in another order, get to the point where you do the hair.

Now, draw the outline. You can use whatever colour you want to do the outline (we'll be hiding it later), but I chose a nice dark blonde. I put this on a layer titled 'Outline'.

So then I made a new layer. This could be called 'Base Colour', 'Colour', 'Back', or anything else, really. Useful names are generally a good idea, though. This layer (I called it 'Back') is beneath 'Outline'. Then I went back to 'Outline', and used the magic wand (shortcut: W) to select outside of my outline. Back to layer 'Back', and flood fill (shortcut: G) with this blonde colour.

Note: This tutorial does not really work well with black or white hair. It only works ok with brown hair. The more saturation the colour you're using has, the better. Blonde works best. I shade the hair blonde, then recolour if I want brown hair. Feel free to copy the above image into Photoshop and use the eyedropper (shortcut: I) to get the correct shade of blonde.

Now hide 'Outline'. (Click on the little eye beside the layer name in the layer menu thingy.)

And now for the hard part: the strands. I used dodge (exposure: 50%) and burn (exposure: 60%), both on range: midtones, size one, no airbrush. I duplicated the 'Back' layer, and named the new one 'Strands'. (You don't have to do that, I just really like making layers.) I'm afraid I can't tell you where exactly to put the strands: it depends on the shape of the hair. This doll's hair is slightly curly/wavy, so I made the strands rounded. If you can't seem to make the strands look right, draw straight hair. Then the strands are just up and down. :)

Seeing as I'm addicted to layers, I then duplicated 'Strands' and named the new one 'Shine'. (I do recommend you do this, just in case you screw up.) I then changed the size of the dodge and burn tools and gave my hair some volume. In general, you should burn along the part, wherever the hair goes behind the neck/shoulders, and anywhere where the hair goes behind the ear. I also burned in various spots where I had a clump of hair going one way on top of another clump going the other way (like at the bottom left). Dodge in a circular shape across the top of the head and along any clumps.

Finally, seeing as this doll is supposed to be a bit messy (and nobody's hair is perfect), I created a new layer ('Frizzies') and added some fly-away strands.