Oils Painting Black Hair

[philwtx1]

I have finally started on my first figure in years, Athens miniatures Spartan officer bust and here is my question; Can anyone give me some tips on painting Black hair and what undercoat to use to bring some depth to it.
I re-painted from black under coat to brown{humbrol chocolate} My medium is oils.
At this point i am thinking Raw umber over this then perhaps a black wash,once dry highlight a few high points of beard by lightening the umber.
Am i on the right track? or is there a better more convincing process for black hair?
Thanks in advance for any help guys.

 

[Einion]

Black hair is one of those things that's hard to get right in miniature, on the one hand we want it to look black, on the other we want to highlight it to bring out the sculpted detail which means a lot of the upper surfaces will end up being a lighter colour. Plus you might want it to be slightly glossy, in keeping with the original material.

For truly black hair I prefer the highlights to be blueish (as they'll tend to look in daylight) and nearly any simple black + white mix will be slightly blue to one degree or another. You can even add in a little dark blue to make the colour a little more obvious.

Raw Umber is usually a very dark yellow by the way, if you want to do a brown-black I'd generally go with Burnt Umber (and it's more in keeping I think with the colour of the Humbrol undercoat, but I haven't seen the colour in the flesh in years). If you don't have Burnt Umber, try mixing in a touch of a red earth or red.

Einion

 

[philwtx1]

Thanks Einion, I have burnt umber so since figure is in early stages i will see the results painted over the brown enamel and can always try going to a darker colour.

Phil

 

[gogok]

HI Phil,

Please search my previous work in this forum. Not much, But wish to help.
Good luck

William Tsang