Digital Painting Basics: Paint Realistic Curly and Wavy Hair in Procreate

1. Introduction: Beautiful curls, locks, and waves. They look great in illustrations, but where to start painting them. In this class, I will teach you exactly that. Hi, I'm Gabriel Shell, and today, I will teach you how to easily paint beautiful curls and locks without struggling. Ever since I was a small child, I love to create different characters and bring them to life. I've been very fortunate to make this passion my career and have been working as a professional illustrator since 2014. Since then, I have worked on a variety of projects, including video games and books, creating many different character illustrations. I'm super passionate about creating beautiful fantasy illustrations with expressive characters. One of my favorite things to paint in a character is hair. Hair is such an essential part of a character. Especially beautiful curly hair can add so much movement and story to a painting. In this class, I will teach you how to easily paint different types of curly hair. This is a sequel to my first class on hair, digital painting basics, paint realistic hair in procreate easily. While in my first class, we were focusing on painting hair in general. In this class, the focus will be exclusively on painting waves and curls. The beginning, I will teach you the main approach to painting different types of curls. In the next section of this class, I will show you in three different painting demonstrations, how I apply the techniques to an actual painting. You will learn the basics of painting wavy hair, how to approach painting small wild locks, and how to create a fluffy, big hairstyle with super tiny curls. This class comes with a free procreate file of a primate character portrait. You can jump right into practicing painting hair. I will also provide my favorite brush set for painting hair for free, which I used to paint all the hairstyles in the demos. I'm super excited to teach this class today, and I can't wait to see your beautiful paintings in the project section. If you're ready, let's get started. 2. Class Orientation: If you're into painting any type of illustrations featuring characters, including portrait paintings or character design, then you've probably come across the topic of painting Hair. In my previous class on painting Hair, I showed you some basic approaches to painting Hair in general, including how to plan the drawing, how to choose the colors, a bit of theory of light and shadow, and how those behave on different types of hair. What we haven't done in detail is talk about how this approach would work on curly hair. That's what we're going to see in depth in this class. In this class, I will show you my process of painting curly, Wafy, and frizzy hair. We'll take a look at how to approach painting individual locks, what techniques to use to paint different types of curly hair, and how to make the painting process quicker and easier. For the class project, I've prepared a photoshop document with a pre painted character without hair so that you can practice painting different types of hair. You can download it from the resource section and open it in Procreate or any other painting software of your choice. I will also attach my procreate brush set for painting here that I used for painting here in the examples. Just keep in mind that those will work exclusively with Procreate. Using the provided character file, you can start with painting air directly and practice different hairstyles and types. Hair is a lot of fun to paint, and different hairstyles can drastically change the feel and look of your character. If you're interested in learning the basics of character design and painting a unique character in the process, feel free to check out my other classes on character design. For the class project, I encourage you to choose a few curly hairstyles you like the most. Using the provided photoshop file with a pre painted character, create your own curly hair painting. Don't forget to post your painting in the project section. So prepare your tablet and your digital painting software, and let's start painting. 3. Basic Approach To Waves: Thank you for joining my class. I'm really happy to have you here, and I hope I can make it easier for you to paint beautiful curls. In this lesson, I will show you my main approach to painting wavy here before we jump into a painting demo in the next lesson. Before I start painting, I like to look for some good reference photos. Good references will make the creation process much easier and give the much needed information about the flow of the hair, the light and shadow, as well as the color. I like to search for mine using pinterest, as well as royalty free image pages like Splash. When painting wavy and curly here, I like to focus on three key aspects. Form direction, texture. Wavey and curly hair comes in various types, ranging from big soft waves to well defined, smaller logs, and even very small tight curls like those found in the Afro hairstyle. The primary difference between waves curls and bigger hairstyles with tiny curls lie in the size of the curls. Big curls might follow one large wave or consist of multiple smaller ones moving in different directions. The thickness of the hair and the overall texture are also important to consider for the realistic depiction. Thinner hair tends to have more straight hairs and moves more easily with the wind, where ticker hair stays more fixed in place, maintaining and shape. Locks can be clean and defined or messy with many straight hairs. Curls can vary greatly, small, tight and well defined or loosen messy in different sizes, densities, and definitions, ranging from fully curd to just wavy. In my other class, digital painting basins, paint realistic hair, in procreate easily, I cover the fundamentals on how light interacts with hair and the main approaches to painting it. I recommend checking it out as it will give you a great foundation for this class. We need to think of hair, especially wavy and curly here as a three dimensional object. We don't think of hair as single units of hair, but rather as a whole, divided by segments that have different forms. Hair isn't flat. Parts that curve towards the light will have lighter colors and highlights, while parts turning away will be in shadow. For bigger waves and straight here, think of it like silky bands of cloth. Parts turned outward will catch more light and draw shadows at the parts under them. Since painting each and every single hair or tiny log will be very time consuming, we will instead focus on segments of hair, defining the overall form and lighting of each. Let's take a look at how I would approach painting wavy here. I like to draw in the overal shape and the direction of the hair. It has a certain rhythm to it as it flows and softly curls. I fill the hair with the middle tone color. I prefer starting with the middle tone, choosing it between the lightest and the darkest tone. After that, to add depth, I define the shadow areas. For that, I choose a somewhat darker color for the main tone. You can decide whether you want your shadow to be a cooler or warmer shade. I love to make the shadow part warmer and the highlights cooler in tone. By softly drawing in the shadows around the lock, it starts looking more and more like a voluminous object. You will see how quickly it will start looking three dimensional with a bit of lighting. To create more depth, I then choose a lighter color, somewhat cold in tone, and very carefully and softly draw in the highlights where the light hits the most. Focus on hair as strands, not individual hairs. The larger the log, the easier it is to paint them. Don't be afraid to get a bit messy. Hair never falls perfectly, and it shouldn't be perfect in your painting either. So in the next lesson, I will jump right into the painting demonstration. See you in the next lesson. 4. Painting Demo Waves: In the last lesson, I showed you my basic approach to painting wavy Hair. Now let's see how that would look on a whole hairstyle. I will use the character portrait I made for my first class on air to create a wavy hairstyle. We will start with some soft, big waves. I found a picture on pinterest of a beautiful umbra hairstyle, I like, which I will use as my reference. I will use the image as a guide to determine the main strands of hair, the movement, the lighting, as well as the color. But I don't plan to make an exact copy of the hairstyle. Before I start, I like to open the image in the reference window in Procreate, so I can always have it next to my painting. A separate layer over the character portrait layer, I will start sketching the outlines of the hair. I use my smudgy soft brush for my hair brush back. You can use any brush that feels comfortable for you to make the initial outline sketch. I focus on the negative space and the outline that the hair creates in comparison to the canvas, the overall shape of the waves, and the direction of movement of each strand. A very common approach in painting, and I feel it works quite well for painting new hairstyles as well, as it forces us to focus on the overall shape instead of directly looking at the details. I determine the main hair parts and separate different hair strands. At this stage of the painting process, I just sketch freely without the pressure of being exact. Since we're going to be painting, we don't need an exact sketch or a clean line drawing. Now, if that's what you prefer for a finished look, by all means, feel free to add a clean line later on. Usually, when I paint, I move all around the canvas as it helps me to not fixate to match on a single part. You will see me sketch the top, then move down to the hair ends, and then jump over to define the strands. During the sketching process, I slowly add more and more details to my sketch that will serve as a guideline for the painting later. After my sketch is done, I create a new layer and move it under the sketch layer. That way when we paint, we can see the sketch on top of it. I will now proceed with filling the shape of the hair with a solid color. You can use any brush you like for that. I use this Magi soft brush for that purpose. I chose a nice middle tone for the underpainting. As mentioned in my previous lessons, I like to choose a tone that sits somewhere in the middle between the darkest and the lightest part. Although I tend to go for a darker shade, as I love to add many different highlights later on. I fill in the outline and the shape of that color, cleaning bits here and there. M Should the sketch and the underpainting overlay the face, you can softly erase the parts with an eraser. The underpainting is done, and in the next step, I will add shadows to start giving volume and three dimensionality to our painting. For that, I create a new layer on top of the underpainting layer. When it comes to choosing the color, I like to use the middle tone as a base, and move the slider somewhat towards darker yet saturated colors. I like my shadows to be saturated and deep. This works on hair of all colors, but has a specially beautiful effect on darker hair. For painting the shadows, I will use my smudgy soft brush. It has a nice soft texture reminiscent of that of hair texture, which helps to achieve a more realistic look. To maintain a clean workflow, you can create a clipping mask on top of the underpainting layer. That way, all the shadows that I'm going to paint on top won't be outside the outline of the underpainting. Very softly, without much pressure, I start painting in the parts that are in shadow. Using the reference image to check for the lighting situation. For best effects and to use the brush stexture to my advantage, I will paint in the shadows following the direction of each lock. I like to take my time at the stage. By putting the shadows correctly, following our initial sketch and reading the necessary information from the reference photo. We will do most of the work in the illustration, leading only to add highlights and lights later on. When painting the shadows, it feels sometimes like I'm virtually brushing the hair, by following the direction of the waves, making soft strokes without much pressure. You can see how it quickly starts getting the needed volume, looking more realistic. M. Places in the hair that are overlaid by other strands of hair will have natural occlusion shadows. Places where a light enters due to two objects hiding the light source. We can see it in her hair, especially between the bigger locks. Painting those will give the feeling of plasticity and volume, and the hair will appear less flat. One thing I love to do is to play with different layer modes. For that, I go on that little end next to the layer name and by clicking it, switch between different options. This will change how the layer interacts with the layer below, creating beautiful effects and oftentimes saving time by better blending different colors. You can also play with the opacity. In this case, I decided to leave it as it is for the moment, but it's a great thing to do each time you add a new color layer. Now I'm ready to move to the next color phase, Umbra. Before I jump right into adding lights to the hair, I want to recreate the beautiful umbra effect we can see in the image. The easiest way to do so is to use a big soft brush and on a separate layer on top of our shadow layer, softly color the ends into a lighter blond shade. Here again, I love to plate with the color modes. The screen mode works especially well with that tone, mixing well with the underpainting layer, as well as the shadow layer, creating that soft umbra effect. Now we're ready to move on to adding lights to our painting. For that, I create another layer on top and start adding lighter parts. I switch back to my smudgy soft brush and go to the color wheel. I want to choose a color that is not too saturated and not too light. As I first need to establish a nice lighter color base before adding the ultimate highlights. I turn the color wheel towards more reddish hue and choose a light, quite unsaturated pink tone for the light colors. Now, if you squeeze your eye slightly at the reference photo, you can see roughly where the lightest parts of the hair are. They are always on top, followed by shadow parts, creating that beautiful wave you look. I start by carefully, without much pressure, drawing in the lights on top of each wave, following the direction of the hair. I'm taking time and slowly brush in the lights on each strand of hair, creating volume and showing the curve of each log. Don't worry if it's not perfect from the start. We can always add it later on, erase parts that are not satisfying or smatch others that are too strong. The most important task here is to correctly identify parts that are supposed to be in light versus the shadow parts. By varying the size of the brush and drawing in the highlights following the direction of the hair, we create more of what looks like separate strands, giving it more detail simultaneously. I like to keep my sketch layer with low opacity on top of the illustration. That way, I can check in with the initially established strands of hair in the direction of each log. Don't forget to add some highlights on top of her hair as well. Even though it's not very visible in the photo due to the lighting in the position of her head, adding very soft lights on top or the side of her hair will make the hair look lossy, clean and silky. Now, I like to keep the lighting layer separate. I find it a bit too bright, so I lower the opacity of the whole layer. Now I create another layer on top of the lights layer to start adding more depth and definition to your logs. For that, I color pick a hair color from the shadow area, and to make the color somewhat and also to give our painting more color variety, I slightly move the color to choose a more saturated, dark, orange warm tone. I start by drawing back in the shadow areas between the waves to create more depth between each log. I try to keep my brush size not too small, to create soft transitions. Using the reference photo as a guide to where the image might need darker shades, I paint the brush strokes following the curvature of the hair. The different color instantly creates more depth in visual interest, making the hair appear more realistic. I continue to carefully paint in the shadow strand by strand, layering the brush strokes. Occasionally, I vary the size of the brush to create different thicknesses of my brush strokes, simulating different sizes of hair strengths. I also like to accentuate the strengths we established in our sketch by defining those logs and by painting in the occlusion shadows those logs create when they interla. As a reminder, occlusion shadows are dark areas on objects that are hidden by the object itself, therefore, not letting light. Now, I want to add even more color variety to our hair. For that, I once again, color pick directly from the illustration and use the new warm brown tone color to add more strands of hair. I do that by once again layering them up. If you want, you can do the step on another layer. Yet at this detailing stage, I decided to keep working on the same layer. I also started drawing in more stray strands that are leaving the outline of the hair. I'm slowly adding more and more locks. I keep on adding more color variety by color picking the color of the light and in my color wheel, moving it to a more saturated orange bage. Now I'm ready to add even more details and lights. I lower the size of my brush slightly and start by adding more lighter strands. I define the strand next to her cheek, the light big waves. I quickly switched to the smatch tool and corrected a darker patch that I didn't particularly like and continued adding layer upon layer of lighter color variety. You can see how it adds gloss and generally more interest as there are now more colors and lights established, making the illustration look more interesting. I will speed up the video as this part takes some time. I like to keep the brush sight smaller at this stage as I want to accentuate the pattern of the single hairs. I occasionally change the brush size, creating lighter patches of hair. Should I find a part of the curl to light, I color pick a darker tone from the illustration and draw some shadows back in. This layering approach will create a more organic look to your illustration. As I'm more satisfied and more confident with the locks, I start defining the section more strongly. I do that by outlining each lock, using the sketch layer as a reference. I define the ends of the hair and add more overlying hairs. I create a new layer and color pick a light brown tone. This time, I will switch to my details bruh. I start adding thin more well defined highlights. I place the brush strokes on parts that I want to out, accentuating some strands. Keep in mind that we mostly want to accentuate strands that are in shadow and want to use this brush sparingly. I keep the brush size tin to create more hair texture and always follow the direction of the hair strands I'm painting. You can purposely add more realism by making the lines go, but stray, not too perfect. As the hairs on our heads never fall perfectly, painting them too neat in our illustration would make them look boring. Have fun adding some little messy stray hairs on your painting. Oh. Don't forget about the hair line. Usually, we can see a bit of the skin where the hair starts. As we start with an under painting, we have to manually add that translucency later. I like to do that by simply painting hair strands over a small part of the skin, creating the transition between hair and head. I continue adding more in hairs, adding some of them on top of her head, where the wind might have ruffled some of her hair and to show that her hair is actually soft and voluminous and not just a block of plastic. By using the smatch tool, we can add some of the parts of the hair. I do that to add the hair line. Since I have different layers, I use the smatch tool to pull back some of the colors from various layers. Now I will add some final highlights. For that, I choose a very light unsaturated color. I keep working with my details brush. I added some highlights on parts that will be most curved towards the light. Mostly, those parts will be on top of already established lights. At this stage, it's important not to overdo it and keep the highlights sparingly. I place them on areas that are in the light, carefully showing the strands and parts that need accents. At this point, we are nearly done with the illustration. H. Oh. One last thing is missing. Let's not forget to paint the shadows on her face from the falling hair. For that, I like to choose a soft brush. I create a new layer on top of the portrait layer. I color pick the shadow color of her skin and softly paint the shadows under her hair and on her face. This hairstyle is done. In the next class, we will take a look at painting smaller curls and the best approach for doing that. So see you there. 5. Basic Approach to Curls: In this section, I will share some techniques for painting curly hair. Cures can vary in form shape and color. There are several different approaches to painting tight, tiny curls. In my last lesson, we covered painting waves. Some hairstyles consist of smaller, more defined waves, and the approach to painting them is similar. For smaller curls, imagine a metallic spring that reflects the light on some of the plane, followed by shadows where the curl turns away from the light source. Though it requires painting the logs individually. While this can be time consuming, the results are often worth the effort. There are two different techniques I would use for painting curls. From big to small. This approach works well for medium size to small curls. Begin by defining the outline of the hairstyle, focusing on the negative space and the form created by different strands. I will focus on the overall direction and movement of the hair rather than individual strands. I will show this in more detail in the next demo. After establishing the overall movement, start defining some individual strands without detailing every single one. For realism, feel free to work on each strand as much as you like. You can use the techniques I showed you in the waves class. Depending on the illustration style, I might do so, but usually, I prefer a more painterly look while leaving other areas less defined. Another approach I like to use for very small curls is outline and texture brush technique. This approach is ideal for very tiny tight curls, such as those in Afra hairstyles. Use a sketch brush to define the overal shape of the hairstyle. Focus on the negative spaces and just look at the form itself. Next, work directly with light and shadow, treating the hair as a whole. Using textured brushes will help create the illusion of small fluffy curls. After that, you can add some definition to some small areas, defining some individual strands or hair ends, giving the illusion of realism. By following these techniques, you can achieve beautiful realistic curls in your digital paintings. Let's move on to the demonstration to see those methods in action. See you in the next class. 6. Painting Demo Curls: In this class, I will show you how I paint curly here. My approach to painting hair can vary drastically depending on the type of hair. As a rule of tamp, a great way to start a drawing is by first outlining the hair shape. Look at the negative space surrounding the overall head and see the different edges, shapes, forms, and volumes the hair creates. I like to do that with just a few simple lines. You can use any brush you like for that. I use my Magi soft brush, which I use as a universal brush for nearly everything from sketching to painting to refining. This type of hair consists of more or less defined separate locks of hair. The locks aren't always very visible, but we can say the hair falls into a few defined locks, which follow a particular direction. I like to mark them with a few simple sketches of the curls. I focus on the most prominent locks and hair strands marking the direction of the curl. You can do that step as detailed as you want. I usually just do a quick sketch before I move into color. But having a more defined sketch of the single curls can make the process easier later on. Later, we will paint on top of that drawing and refine the curls further. After having the outline and the rough direction, size and form of the curls thrown out, I like to fill the shape with a base color. For that, I create a new layer below the sketch layer and pick a dark middle tone. I like to keep the darks in warm tones, and so I chose a warm brown for the underpainting. I fill the hair shape, leaving some spaces here and there where the single logs will be ending. Since we will be editing refining and erasing parts later on, you can be as rough as you want at this stage. Oh. At this point, we will start adding volume and depth. After filling in the color, I like to create a new layer on top of the underpainting, yet still under the sketch layer. For that, I choose a darker, more saturated and using my smudge soft brush, I start painting in the darkest parts of the hair. If you're squeeze your eyes at the photo, you can see that we can find the darkest shadows contouring her face and in the lower part of the hair, wrapping behind the head. I like to approach this part in a painterly way. I add the shadows following the form of the locks, adding small brush strokes in between the locks where the shadows will be. I continue refining the locks and the overall shadow areas, adding more definition to the single curves and paying attention to the direction of each lock. As you can see, it instantly adds some more volume and plasticity to the overall hair. I like to lower the brush size to be able to create smaller logs and inner hair strands, once I establish the bigger ones. I now add curls and hairs outside of the hair shape, making the hair look more organic. Hairs are never homogeneous, so pay attention not to repeat the same rhythm too much. The single curls of hair fall into different directions and follow different forms. Some c, others inwards, creating that organic look. Small messy hairs across the curls create more realism as hair never falls perfectly. Oh. I like to use the smudge tool to clean the line, making it less harsh. For that, I like to use the same brush I use for painting as usually my smudge brush. I carefully smut and soften transitions between the line and the parts next to it, making the locks appear softer. Highlights are the magic ingredient, which will turn flat looking hair into full voluminous locks. For that, I like to select a slightly desaturated color, staying in the same color range as the base and the darker tone. I add the highlights on the highest part of each log, highlighting and just enough to give the feeling of light falling on a tube. As I showed you in the metal spring example in my previous lesson. We don't want to overdo that part, as it can quickly look like we're repainting highlights as in dyed hair. We just want the lights to accentuate the form of each log. In this stage, I closely follow the example in the image. While the most contrast can be found on top of her hair, I will add a bit of that highlight detailing each part of her hair. Later, we will soften that and accentuate the parts that are turned most towards the light. I like to take my time at this stage. Carefully placed highlights can make all the difference in a painting. O Using the smudgy soft brush as a smudge tool, we can adjust parts that are too harsh, for example, where the lock is carving away from us to soften the transition and to make the light softer. It's important to occasionally out and see the painting from afar. That way, you can spot mistakes early on and also see what parts need to be worked on. My approach to painting here is very painterly. Depending on the style you are working in, you will find many different solutions to painting here. I like to leave parts defined, opting for big brush strokes and the illusion of realism with a few strokes of highlights. It gives the illustration that handmade feeling I enjoy. This match tool can also be very conveniently used to clean parts of the illustration. Instead of going for the eraser, you can softly push back strands or stray hairs to achieve a softer result. I like to do that on each layer, softening the sketch layer, the underpainting, and the details layer. In the end, my process is always similar in the sense that I like to add layers of color followed by another layer, softening, erasing if needed, and adding layers with more definition and detail as I go. This layer of paint upon layer of paint method helps to create a more realistic result and also makes the process more organic. Also, I'm not worried about being perfect from the beginning. I work on the painting as a whole, gradually, slowly adding realism and improving the image. O I like to add some well defined curls in the front of the face and around the main focus. Sometimes, you can achieve the feeling of realism by working out a few details, leaving the rest. This works not only for painting hair, but it is a general approach to illustration or painting itself. After softening some of the highlights, I like to add some sharp highlights on top again. For that, we will continue with the same approach as before. On a new layer on top of the rest of the hair, I will choose a desaturated pretty light color. If the shadows are warm, cooler tones, even moving towards bluish tones can look great as they will simulate the blue skylight. In this case, I will stay in the same color range, simply choosing a lighter color. I start accentuating the highlighted areas on single strands, paying especially attention to parts that I turn towards the light the most. I am also paying special attention to the reference image. As it gives me all the information I need about the lighting situation in my painting. Can you see how only smaller areas of each strand have strong highlights on them? I try to add just those as we already added lights in the previous step. I always try to work in the direction of the brush stroke. I will often rotate my canvas, my hand, and the brush itself, to make the lines look as organic as possible. I also like to add some frist and stray hairs. This will make the hair look more real, less neat, and more naturally looking. You can always add it on a separate layer, and should it turn out too strong or not to your liking, you will be able to addit it easily. Let's make some color and tone adjustments. I will now add a bit more depth and volume. I created a new layer on top of everything and chose a soft brush. With a dark, saturated color, I paint in the shadow areas of the whole hairstyle, especially with the hair curves away from us on the right lower bottom next to her face. I also like to play with color modes. Multiply is a great one to add depth and saturation. But I always tend to just scroll to various modes to see which look good and solve the problem I'm trying to solve. I'm lowering the opacity slightly as it looked a bit too dark for my liking, but I really like how it quickly added more volume to the hairstyle. Let's do the same with the lighter parts. For that, I create a new layer on top of the shadow layer. I choose a light color and use my soft brush to paint some very soft lights on top of her hair and the side where the light falls. Here again, I like to play around with the color modes. I often use lighting, but in this case, I really liked how soft light looked. If you now zoom out, you can see that the hair now has more volume. Now I'm ready to work on the details of the painting. For that, I like to merge some layers so I can focus on cleaning the outline without having to repeat it on each layer. But this is totally up to you. If you prefer to continue working on separate layers, feel free to do that. I like to keep the amount of layers minimal, so I tend to merge down some layers when I'm satisfied with the process. I use an eraser with this sagsft brush selected to clean the edges of the hair. I go in the dark parts between the different curls and add some transparency, as hair tends to get less tick in the ends. Now it's time to detail and add yet another layer of realism to our painting. We already added quite some of them. The sketch layer, the under painting layer, the shadow layer, followed by the light layer, first rounds of highlights. Now it's time to add some more gloss to our hair. At this stage, we are moving towards the finishing line. I want to add some more sharp highlights to the hair before finishing. You can use the details brush for that or any other brush that feels great. I often also paint them using this magsft simply by making the brush size sm. I choose a very light color and go over all the lighter strengths of her hair, accentuating the curls and the single hair strands. It may look a bit strong and too contrasty now, but we will later soften it up. It adds this really nice gloss to her hair, making the different strands pop out. I mostly focus on the curls on top of her hair, which are the ones that catch most of the light. I add some bits of sharp highlights on the sides and on some of the curls that are turned towards the light. O. Again, I use this smatch tool to soften parts that are too strong or that need a bit less contrast, making the glossy highlights. Oh H H. In this stage, I paint in direction of each hair strand, making small thin lines, following the curvature of each lock. I'm setting the highlights only on the lighter parts of the hair to accentuate the lock further and try to keep it. I also like to add some more very thin hair strands to make the ends look thinner. I create a new layer on top and choose a details brush. With a dark color, I will now add some single hairs. Especially on the side of her hair, we can see in the image that there are some straight hairs. I paint them over the spaces I have left in the ends of her hair, filling those spaces with tiny curls. It makes the hair look more soft and real as hair tends to have imperfections and irregular hairs. A We are nearly done. There's just one lasting missing. To make the hair blend even better with the body underneath, it needs a few shadows. For that, I create a layer beneath the hair and using a soft brush paints some soft, warm shadows right below the hair. You can pick a shadow color directly from the bust, such as the color right below her chin. And now our painting is done. Congrads, you have now learned how to paint smaller curls. 7. Painting Demo Afro: In the last lesson, I showed you my approach to painting curly hair. But how would we approach painting smaller, more frizzy curls? In this lesson, I will show you how I would approach painting another type of hair. The hair in the photo is much more frizzy and thick in comparison to the hair we painted before. The locks are smaller, tighter, curled, and fall into what looks like small tubes in different directions around her face? You could start by painting an outline of her hair, which is always recommended. In this case, I jumped right in to show how you could quickly create good results with simplicity. For that, as usual, I create a new layer on top of the bust and choose my smudgy soft brush. Here, you can use any texture brush that offers a bristle like texture or some frizzy texture if you work in a different software for that. The important part is that with each brush stroke, we can imitate some of that frizzy softness of each of he locks. I start directly with the darker brown tone and follow the direction of each lock. What I do here is that instead of having a sketch first, I directly establish the underpainting by painting in the locks. Her hair is full and voluminous, and we want to show that by layering locks upon locks of her curls. I'll leave some spaces between the locks so I can see the different strokes. I will eventually fill those spaces up. Pay attention to the movement I make. With my hand and brush movement, I imitate the rotation of the lock. You can vary the size of the brush, adding some smaller logs of hair around their face. I like to refine the ends by painting them with a smaller brush size and showing the tin hairs at the end of each girl. Now, to add more dimension and depth, I choose a lighter brown color using the initial darker color as a base. I start painting in small curls to show texture and definition. In the picture, the locks are fairly well defined, so we can directly paint smaller curls with our lighter colors. In the case of an Afro where we wouldn't have such a clear definition, instead of painting small curls, we would use a texture brush and later add lighter texture on top. In our illustration, though, the curls are nicely visible and have some thickness to them. Oh. Oh. I use this match tool to soften the transition, especially at the beginning of each lock and also adjust the thickness of the line. I keep adding more layers of hair strands. In my case, I'm working on a single layer, since I'm treating the hair as one. Again, if you prefer to work on separate layers, definitely feel free to do so. I add some more hair strands and keep layering inner strands on top of the lighter color. I color pick the color directly from the image. By doing that, in picking the overlaid color, we will get new tones and hues, which will all look coherent in our illustration. I keep on layering more and more strands. I pay attention to where the light falls on each lo. Should you make the lighter color too thick and on what looks like the hole of the lock, you can easily correct that by smudging away from below, leaving most of the light in the middle of each lock. As you can see in the reference image, the hair falls nicely around the head. Whereas in the illustration right now, it looks a bit too stiff and seems to grow equally in all direction. Let's change that. For that, I like to use the liquify tool. You can do that by going to the adjustments and selecting. In the push settings, I adjust my branch size as I don't want it to be too small and start softly pulling and pushing parts of the hair. One thing I do here is to open a bit of her forehead. I also adjust the volume on the sides of her hair and also lower the direction of the curls on her sides more towards the bottom. This makes the hair fall more naturally. I continue adding lights with a lighter brown color. Now, instead of painting spirals, I mostly paint the light on top of each curl, highlighting the logs on the parts that will catch most of the light. Occasionally, where there is still no definition, I will add inner strands to create more interest. To add more volume and definition, I also like to paint in some overall shadows on the whole of the hair. For that, I create a new clipping layer on top of the painting and choose my soft brush. With a dark, nearly black color, I paint some shadows around the lower side of the hair. Once again, I play around with the layer modes. Multiply seems to work the best in this case, and I adjust the opacity. This is a quick way how you can paint this type of hair, without actually painting each lock painstakingly, yet without leaving too undefined either. Sometimes, depending on the level of detail I want to achieve, I would continue working on defining the hair as I showed you in my curls video. For visualization purposes, it is sufficient to show a good level of detail and give information about the texture of your hair without spending too much time on defining it. Now we can add some shadows from the hair on her face as I showed you in my previous video, and we're done. 8. Final Words: Congratulations on finishing this class. You can be really proud of yourself as painting curly hair is not an easy task. I really hope that my lessons help make painting curls and waves a bit easier. We learn how to analyze and understand how curls work, how to approach painting each type of curly hair style, how to choose the correct painting method, and how to make the results look good without struggling. Don't forget to upload your hair painting in the project section of this course. I will take a look at each entry individually and respond. Also, if you like this class, I would really appreciate it if you could leave me a review, as this greatly helps to improve my classes for you. I can't wait to see all your beautiful works. So happy painting and see you soon.