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Now that we’ve gone over the considerations, let’s get into it! How to Color Realistic Hair in PaintTool SAI To learn how to install custom brushes and brush textures in PaintTool SAI read my post How to Make Custom Brushes in PaintTool SAI. Do not feel pressured into using custom textures unless you want to. You can still achieve realistic hair rendering using just one or two simple paint brushes in PaintTool SAI, as many painters in history did before the advent of digital art. If you intend to use a custom brush or brush texture, make sure to download it before you begin coloring.Įxperimenting with these textures can speed up your work process, but are not necessary.
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There are a variety of brush textures available in PaintTool SAI, and even more custom user-created textures online.
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This is a method that I use occasionally for coloring anime hair, as there are many accessible character sheets from various popular shows available online. I find collected 3-5 reference images a great help.įurthermore, if you struggle with color, you can use your reference images and the color picker to create a color palette for your piece. These reference images can be useful to help you figure out how a certain color of hair looks under lighting, and be a visual aid throughout your design process. Reference ImagesĬonsider collecting a few reference images before coloring. Gather references to determine how you will proceed with your drawing. There are many styles outside of photorealistic and anime. Research which style you would like to use before proceeding.
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While photorealistic styles utilize a variety of colors and blending techniques such as sfumato and airbrushing, traditional anime styles use limited color palettes and cell-shading. The most popular styles include photorealistic and anime. Style is the main factor that will determine the coloring strategy that you use. Cel-shading is a rendering technique often used in anime, manga, and western cartoons in which flat colors and shadows create the illusion of depth in an image instead of a shading gradient and are often composed of a base, shadow, and highlight layers.īefore you begin coloring the hair on your character, there are a few things you should take into consideration.Using various brushes and custom brush textures can aid in coloring realistic hair.Collecting reference images can be useful as a visual aid to use while designing.Style is the main factor that will affect your hair-coloring strategy.How to Color Anime Hair in PaintTool SAI.How to Color Realistic Hair in PaintTool SAI.
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