Animal short hair tutorial


Realistic painting is not what I strive to paint now days, I kind of grown in my artistic skills and moved on. But here you have fur hair tutorial as requested.

So back to this tutorial.
To learn to paint realistic things you just have to learn to *se* the object go so close that you can feel it with your
backbones. Study the material object, animal or what ever you got affront to paint. Take your time. DON'T rush it
And think you know how it looks.. That is a BIG mistake. Look at it as with a baby's eyes who looks at it for
the first time in life.. Study it and start sketching it AS you SE it.. Don't let some part in you fool you by saying that
"ha I know how this thing looks like I don´t need to look at it as that intensive.." That is what you are thought to
look at a object with al the information you are stubbed in and pressed down your thought to THINK it looks like.

So to steps..
(Yes I did take a painting I have made before again and painted it .. IM lazy so I just picked one I know good, by studying it closely a whole week.)
After you have study the object this time it is a rat and I want to make realistic hair. (Yes I know there are several hair tutorials out there, but this is my style and not anybody else's).
So start to sketch it down ruff, meaning se the larger blocks in the object "Light" and "shadows" notice one thing at this way to paint I DON`T use lines, I study this forms light and shadows arias.. As it would looked at what ever form it did have without me knowing what it was IM gona paint, that's is the way to look at the object don´t let the brain fool you, telling you that things looks wrong and should NOT be at this aria.. Paint what you se, don´t paint what the brain say to you what this is... shore it looks as a rat.. But forget that and just paint light and shadows.
Cep on doing that and put in more colors who you can se ..
Soften the parts out.. And start to look at how a shingle hair looks like .. how deep does it goes, what directions this hair goes, what shape it got.
Now start to draw every single hair by hand .. start with a light one..
When you are done with the light ones you can se that not al hair got the same colors.. And especial where shadows is.. So paint in dark hairs one by one..paint more of the dark ones in arias where the shadows are.. And lights one where the light hair is.. (Feels like therapy working with hair like this, takes time but it gives you a better restate than if you should use a composed brush or a texture to paste in.. nature made every shingle hair .. so if you want that natural look, start paint it as you where the one re creating this creature..
You could se that the hair did look hard .. I do not like that at al.. a fur often got a soft nice look as you want to feel that softness in your hand.. (Often anyway maybe not a rat for some ;) ) so use the softening tool..and yes again soft it down with same methods as you used to paint every single hair, don´t forget the angel of the hair how it points within the whole fur its like the shape of a water wave.. Now to get the *daylight* look at the fur I use a light blue color who will reflex in the fur from a window or what ever light source you imagine or se. Daylight often got a blue tone in it and indoors light got a yellow one.. And surthen lamps got blue green light.. (Tips learn to se the colors in light as a photographer have to learn to se that).
now.. Oh yeahh IM not done, the fur got several layers of hair atop of each others.. That is how a rat fur looks like.. So start painting hair as before atop of what you already have painted..
Again soft it down some..
Dark hair ..
Soft it down .. but be genteel with the pressure...
Light hair again and weary genteel strokes almost no pressure at al at your wacom tablet.

So here you are you got a realistic fur of a rat, this methods you can repeat as many times you want And work your way from bottom up to the top..I would cep doing this a couple of times before I was satisfied with the restate, but it a waste to show you the steps over and over again.. This method I use is also same way making any kind of fur you want. expect for long hair.. That takes some more study at light and shadows part etc. .. might show how some other day.. If IM up to it :)

Here is the original painting I did made of this rat...

// nenne
http://reneblom.com