Wilwarin Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 I'm currently painting a druid for my husband's new campaign. She's Aasimar and has silver hair. My question is, how does one go about painting silver hair? I was thinking maybe painting it white with a dry coat of silver over it? What about gray with a silver dry brushing over it? I am so confused as to what to do. I want it to look nice. Any input would be greatly appreciated!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator TaleSpinner Posted February 20, 2009 Moderator Share Posted February 20, 2009 I'm not certain as to what you would be comfortable doing, but I'd attempt it using the following progression: Base Coat: mid to dark grey, maybe with a bit of blue in it if you want it to look a little more magical. Hightlights layers (paint each layer using thinned paint. Each layer should be semi-trans parent; see the Let It Flow article in The Craft if you need thinning advice.): 1. mid grey 2. mid to light grey 3. light grey 4. Silver (just on the highlights and very thin. just enough to give a bit of silver sparkle. you dont want to cover everything with silver, just the high points that would catch the light, otherwise it will look overdone and unreal.) 5. White (only on the areas that would most brightly reflect light, like the halo around the crown of the head and any turned up areas--this is hard to describe) The goal here would be to have the darker greys in the valleys between hairs (base coat and #1), the mid tones up the sides of the hairs (#2 and #3), the light tone on top of the hairs (#3), and the Silver and white covering the top highlights with the white only being in areas where the light reflection is intense. I hope this all made sense. I have no idea whether you are into highlighting or not, so this may all be more description than you need or want. Conversely, I'm not certian that I explained it well, others may do a better job. I hope this helps. Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanael Posted February 21, 2009 Share Posted February 21, 2009 I'd agree with what TS says, here...I'll also throw this link in: Jubilee's Hair Tutorial. This is a tut for shiny black hair, but the principles work pretty well the same...here's her formula, working up. Pure Black Dark Elf Skin+Pure Black (2:1 or 3:1) Dark Elf Skin Dark Elf Highlight Dark Elf Highlight+Ghost White (1:1) You can use the same five steps as Jubilee, but replace her five highlight colors with the ones TS mentioned. And definitely go easy with the metallics, lest your hair start looking plasticky. You may even find, if you use the right greys (perhaps starting with RMS Rainy Grey and adding Ghost White until you're entirely white), you don't need metallics at all. The trick there is to use a grey that starts out pretty cool to begin with; the greener greys are going to make her hair look, well, grey. Keep it coming! I love seeing cool hairjobs on minis! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nissiana Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 I'm going to disagree on color choice with Sanael a little bit. My personal favorite for silver-ish hair is to base with RMS Snow Shadow--it skews the silver more toward blue, which keeps it more in the color family with Ghost white. Rainy Gray is good for a nice steely-gray hair, IMHO. The best hair tutorial I've ever seen is in this thread from Darkstar, and the mini which starts off the thread has a pretty good non-metallic silver hair example, although it would also read for a very glossy white hair. Good luck--I LOVE painting white, and silver hair is a new favorite of mine as well--now, I just need to get up the guts to start doing NMM. Looking forward to seeing your result! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DFo Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 ...I LOVE painting white... Masochist. ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilwarin Posted February 24, 2009 Author Share Posted February 24, 2009 I'm not certain as to what you would be comfortable doing, but I'd attempt it using the following progression: Base Coat: mid to dark grey, maybe with a bit of blue in it if you want it to look a little more magical. Hightlights layers (paint each layer using thinned paint. Each layer should be semi-trans parent; see the Let It Flow article in The Craft if you need thinning advice.): 1. mid grey 2. mid to light grey 3. light grey 4. Silver (just on the highlights and very thin. just enough to give a bit of silver sparkle. you dont want to cover everything with silver, just the high points that would catch the light, otherwise it will look overdone and unreal.) 5. White (only on the areas that would most brightly reflect light, like the halo around the crown of the head and any turned up areas--this is hard to describe) The goal here would be to have the darker greys in the valleys between hairs (base coat and #1), the mid tones up the sides of the hairs (#2 and #3), the light tone on top of the hairs (#3), and the Silver and white covering the top highlights with the white only being in areas where the light reflection is intense. I hope this all made sense. I have no idea whether you are into highlighting or not, so this may all be more description than you need or want. Conversely, I'm not certian that I explained it well, others may do a better job. I hope this helps. Andy First off, thanks for all the feedback everyone! I have both in consideration (printed both replies out!) but I went with this one for my first try. I like how it came out; however it's not perfect by far. It's pretty good for a good try, I guess! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bettagirl Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 Well, do you have any pics? Let's see how it looks, cause it's not nice to tease. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dks Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 Here's my version of silver hair on Liriel Silverlocks: http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/lirie..._Liriel_rear_ds I don't remember whether I kept notes on the colors, but it looks like there's a variety of grays in there, both bluish (cool) and brownish (warm) -- the warmer notes, IMO, make it look like hair instead of a synthetic wig. I think I made the sword-blade slightly cooler/bluer overall, which you can see in the front view. And to make the hair look silver instead of just gray or white (as with all metallic or shiny effects), be sure to increase the contrast: dark shadows, light highlights. But, all that said, my first attempt at silver hair, on some GW Female Dark Elves (1987 or so), was plain metallic silver. I thought it looked fine at the time. Derek Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cerebro1974 Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 lots of good info!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilwarin Posted February 26, 2009 Author Share Posted February 26, 2009 I have her hair almost finished (I decided to add more >.> LOL) so I'll put up some WIP pics in a while. Whenever my toddler allows me ;) LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanael Posted February 27, 2009 Share Posted February 27, 2009 Ha! Derek, I'm so glad to hear you say that about the metallic hair...I suspect we've all done it, but I like seeing that some of the greats started off with the same crazy habits I did. I have a bunch of minis with silver or gold metallic hair, covered over with a variety of Citadel inks for different shades. Ah, good times... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghaz Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 Maybe use a bit of Pearl White as the highlight instead of Silver? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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