Blonde Hair in Oils

[KeithP]

Folks-

Working on the MR 100 mm Naval Brigade Officer now.

Looking to maintain a fair complexion with blonde or sandy hair.

My experiments with various browns and umbers + yellows and ochres is resulting in green drab results.

Can anyone give me some tips for blonde hair in oils?

Any suggestion greatly appreciated!

Keith

 

[slaj]

Try washing the hair with an olivy greenish umber and let dry . I mean really dry. Then start with a colour leaning towards ochre and start building up the highlights. I do not reccommend to use any yellows . I'd prefer to lighten the ochres adding small amounts of white but not pure white

Stephen Mallia

 

[Bert Takken]

Why not a base of yellow ocre, then higlichting with white. After drying a wash of Umber and if you like again a drybrush with white
Bert

 

[Patrick Kirk]

Keith,
Take a look at my Viking and see if this helps...the mix I used was:
Raw Sienna and Mars Yellow for the base (I used distilled english spirits to help dry the oil...also, as my brother Lou has mentioned, I laid them out on a 3x5 card to soak out the excess oil...then I mixed the base coat)
To the base (just a lil of the base) I added Naples Yellow and Zinc White, and for the extreme highlights of the blonde hair, I used more Zince White and less Napels Yellow...
Once it was all dry, I went back in with a deeper shade of the base (just more Raw Sienna than Mars Yellow) for the deepest shadows...
Does that help at all?

All the best

Patrick

 

[KeithP]

Stephen and Bert -
You know, I tried the ochre's alone and they seemed well... ochre-y and a bit un-natural. I'll let fully dry, too. Just seemed "un highlightable" at the time! However, I will give another try with the the white's in the highlight. Good idea!

Patrick- Yeah. I like the Viking. I was trying to avoid sienna for the hair as I use that in my base flesh and for the wet on wet first shadow....
OTH, I'll pick up raw sienna and give your formula a try. I like the idea of trying naples yellow as a highlight. That makes sense... Why are you using zinc white rather than titanium?

Good stuff, folks!

Keith

 

[Patrick Kirk]

Keith,
Thankyou...
I'll use Zinc White since it's a lil more transparent than Titanium White...the effect I want is to tone down Napels Yellow, not over power it, and I think Zinc White is more effective than Titanium...
Will be eager to hear how it turns out for you...
You could also use Gold Ochre and Mars Yellow with just a touch of Raw Sienna for color as the base if you want to stay away from too much of Raw Sienna...just my thoughts...
Please post your work, ok?

Hope all is well

Patrick

 

[Pete_H]

Patrick,
What did you use for the undercoat?

 

[Patrick Kirk]

Pete, my brother!
I use a mix of Gold Ochre Vallejo and a very old jar of Poly Scale Mustard Yellow... if you use the Gold Ochre with a lil Ice Yellow you will get the same undercoat tone...
Does that help?

All the best my friend...hope you are doing well.
Take care

Patrick

 

[KeithP]

Patrick - Thanks for the info.

I had planned to use the Valejo Cork or Beige Brown for undercoat. I'll put in a tad of the ice yellow. I will post but want to get the hair blocked in before I finish the rest of the face.

Pete-

What did you use on your Capt Dick Winters blonde? Was that oil or acrylic? That looked like what I was trying for...

Keith

 

[Pete_H]

Thanks, Patrick. It helps a lot.

Cheers!

 

[pkess]

You might try a base oil color of Raw Umber with a little Mars Yellow. Gradually add highlights with Mars Yellow, Jaune, Naples Yellow, etc. I f you need some deeper shadows add a dab of Sepia.
I always try to paint hair the same as any other part of the figure, i.e. use the paint to define the "planes" of the hair. Don't try to pick out individual hairs as you would not be able to see them in the scales that we work. After drying, you can go back and add some light highlight lines in areas that have the most highlights; darker lines in areas that have deeper shadows. Keep these thin and random.

 

[KeithP]

Phil-

Thanks for the input. This figure has pretty well defined and detailed hair. So, treating it as a mass rather than a individual strands of spaghetti makes alot of sense.

Keith