Painting blond hair

[centurion]

Hi all,

I am using Andrea's acrylic paints and wanted to ask what paints I should use to paint Viking blond hair.

Kindest regards.


*** Thank you very much for your kind advice - very much appreciated ***

 

[Sambaman]

I'm an oils guy, so I can't help you with the acrilycs part.
But all I can say is this, take some time and look at blond hair before you start. One of my biggest pet-peaves is "yellow" hair passed off as blond. Rarely do you see what I would call "true" yellow in blond hair. Be sure to notice that blond hair is actually a light buff, buff, or tan to even a light brown color. My wife has very nice naturally blond hair, and it ranges from nearly medium brown to very light gold in the highlights. As you look notice that the colors vary both from highlight to shadow, but also there will be some natural varigation throughout the hair itself. Just one guys opinion. Have fun!!!

Jay H.
OKC

 

[garyjd]

I've heard og green being used as one of the colors when painting blond hair. It would probably be best for your darkest dark, used sparingly.~Gary

 

[Anders Heintz]

Im not sure with Andrea colors but with Vallejo's range, Flat Brown is a good base, then just add some Gold Ochre until you reach that shade and make final highlights with Sand Light added to the Gold Ochre, with the hi highlights being close to pure Sand Light.

 

[whdamon]

For the past few years I have used a dark green when shading a head of yellow hair. Not sure why, but it always looks a lot more realistic to me when finished....this hold more with oils, but i have had simular results with acrylics.
Walt Damon

 

[bonehead]

I suggest that you not worry about the precise paints to use. Instead, grab yourself a stack of fashion magazines or other such publications with nice color ads that show photos of models with blonde hair. Choose one you like, then proceed to mix your paints using the photo as reference. You might be surprised at the variety of colors. The nice thing about doing it this way is that you can mix up paint on your pallette and dab it directly onto to your reference photo to check for color matching.

This is a much more oprganic approach than using some pre-set formula. What's more, you can vary things by using different reference photos for different figures.

Just my two cents......

 

[garyjd]

Originally posted by bonehead@Dec 16 2005, 12:33 PM
I suggest that you not worry about the precise paints to use. Instead, grab yourself a stack of fashion magazines or other such publications with nice color ads that show photos of models with blonde hair.

Mike, As far as that goes photos would also be a great source for skin tones, although it might be best to avoid models wearing makeup. Great idea for a reference.~Gary

 

[Glen]

I also use Andrea Colors. According to Andrea's 'Painting Girls in Miniature', a basic blonde hair can be had using AC-40 Earth, AC-02 English Khaki, and AC-08 Golden Yellow. Earth is the basic color with English Khaki and Golden Yellow being the shadow and highlight respectively.

A more involved mix uses a base of AC-15 Ochre + AC-08 GY + AC-02 EK, highlights of 'Base' + AC-08 GY + AC-39 Beige, and shadows of AC-02 EK + AC-23 Violet.

The basic mix was used on the 70mm Poste Militaire VIking attached below.

HTH

Glen