Drawing Feathers or beast-like hair.

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Im working on a character right now based on some conept drawings i did. in short i occasionally draw something i really like, maybe its just chicken scratch or what, but i dont necesarily plan everything out 100%.

so right now im texturing this character, and my initial plan was to have is backside covered in this kinda of flowing feather-like material. after drawing half a dozen feathers ( one at a time and duplication/reposition) i moved onto hair. ive got photo reference of the gamequality style i want, but i cant necessarily replicate it.

im familiar with a technique for drawing human hair which usually works nicely, but this is supposed to be matted or beast like hair. can anyone offer any advice? i cant find anything too useful in the reference dept. some technical help would be great.

Quasar

Maybe this will help. What it comes down to is a lot of work.

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wow thats great. i dont have a tablet, but ive spent a lot of time on this dude as it is, so im cool with another 3 hour session for just one UV shell texture.

i cant beleive i didnt see that on 3d total, thats the first place i looked 0.o

thx man.

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i geuss this is the second part of my initial question:

How exactly should i approach drawing black hair? do i just use any color underneath, then use the aformentioned technique using black/white ( or dark grey/light grey)

i attempted to use dark purple and blue along with black and that came out nicely, but im not sure what style that puts the texture in.

Quasar

Well it would help if you posted a picture, but you're on the right track with the blue.



Look at the highllights on this black bear's fur, you can see that it has a slightly blue tinge to it because it's reflecting the atmosphere. If you want to make the fur look dirtier, just reduce the intensity of the highlights, simply because it will scatter the light more. Hope that helps, maybe someone with more experience can explain it better.

MoP

I like the way Dark Horizon handles black hair... seems just a lot of black strokes, then some very small, fine, bright highlights here and there to give the hair some volume and shape.

http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=22267&an=0&page=0#22267

Stuff there, check his Hellboy skin on his site too.
Then again I guess it depends what style your texture is in. The method you outlined there sounds like it should work. I usually use blue as a suggested colour for black hair... dunno why.

MoP

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heres an old Wip Texture, ive gone through, fur, hair, scales, feathers and just plain nothing. id love any feed back or comments if you guys dont mind. the back side is ehre im having the trouble. im also contemplating having the arms coverd in the hair/feathers or not , so...[image]http://[/image]

Cubik

Poop does a great job at hair:
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/hair_tutorial/hair_01.htm

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yep thats the technique i was talking about. but unfortunetly this guy doesnt exactly use pert-plus, so im glad i got the fur hook up.

and right now im wishing i had a tablet, this is taking a very long time.

i woke up this morning and realized i should create a few more polygons in which the fur would protrude, so ill check that out too.

King-Vitaman

Heres a website that has some great pictures of birds wings, good feather references. Seems like you are doing fur, but its good for future reference.

http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/wingphotos.html

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those are some great pictures thanks alot.

heres what ive been working on all day, think its working out? [image]http://[/image]