I was asked about how I paint Kylo’s luxurious hair, so I threw together a step by step with a piece I’m working on (will be posting more of that later). I’m still figuring out how to paint hair myself and I’m not a hyper realistic painter, so this definitely isn’t a guide to 100% realism. Done in Photoshop.
First off, make sure you have plenty of reference. I’ve been using crappy screencaps for the general shape and style and then grabbing some Adam Driver photos to fill in the detail and color that those caps are sadly lacking.
I block in the silhouette with a dark color. What color you use depends on the lighting of your scene, but don’t use 100% black or it’ll look dead. I think this one was a really dark purple.
Then I use a dark brown to block in the large masses of light. Don’t think of individual strands of hair, just large rounded shapes.
I use a cooler color to highlight. Again, the exact color is relative to the lighting in your scene. I find less is more when it comes to highlights and hair in general. The more I go nuts painting highlights and strands of hair, the worse it looks, so I try to restrain myself. I probably didn’t restrain myself enough. Looking back, I think I’d tone down the highlights more. I painted them on a new layer so I could fade some of the edges after. I think of the hair sort of like ribbons at this point rather than strands.
And finally, refining and giving it some more depth. I added a cool blue light from the top and some warm backlighting. Adding a bit of dark right beside the highlights will make them look shinier and freshly conditioned like you know they are. I painted a few individual strands in the highlights and around the edges (again on a new layer) to add realism, but I try to be sparing with those or it tends to make it look flat. A little bit of smudge brush to blend and soften some edges, dodge brush to bring out a couple of the brightest highlights, and then I call it done and hope I’ve done those luscious locks justice.
TechieHux 