DARKEST AFRICA - painting black Africans' hair - a trick

[ChickLewis]

I just finished painting all 24 foundry Pygmies, and I really like the way they
came out overall. I tried a new way to get the hair to look right, and think I
finally have a keeper. Just painting the hair flat black makes it look VERY
flat and boring after dullcoting. I tried dark grey highlights in the past,
but am not happy with the results. However, Polly-S has a color called "oily
black" which is very interesting. If you just paint the hair with oily black,
it doesn't look right, either. However, I blocked in the hair with plain old
flat black, and then after the figures were completely finished and dullcoted,
I drybrushed the hair areas with oily black. It looks exactly how I wanted it
to, bringing up the highlights, and giving a "realistic" look. You might try
it out.

Chick...@aol.com
"Men choose as their prophets those who tell them that their hopes are true."
- Lord Dunsany
Chick...@aol.com
3930 Cody Road
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 USA
day 818-718-1221
eve 818-784-8476

[Aaron Liebling]

I generally use a flat black and wash with a drak brown (or sometimes
use dark brown washed with a black). I then dry brush with a lighter
gray ever so slightly (unless the model is of an older person and I want
the grey/black hair look that many people of African descent get)

[DrumLund]

For natural hair, the methods you mention work very well. Many tribes used
vairetis of mixtures to sculpt their hair; butter, clay, lard and dung were all
mentioned by explorers. I painted the more peculiar shapes with a dull
red-brown.

Jon Lundberg