In this Workshop I cover a tutorial on how to paint a couple of different kinda of beards...

This tutorial I have written is about beards, however it can also be used to quite a decent degree on something like hair. I have used dwarfs because, well... they rock, I am also painting dwarfs at the moment. And of course they have plenty of hair.

You can find find a full tutorial over at my other blog, The Grumpy Stunty.

With my choice in beards I tend to favour light coloured beards or dark browns. I do find that I struggle getting the highlights of the brown just right, but as with everything it is practice. My choices are varied, as I feel units should be, making them seem more natural.

Anyway... onto the guide.

I have two Tan seeming beards, each arriving at a similar point but by different means and two dark-mid brown ones. And a single black beard.

[size=x-large]Tan[/size]

Stage One

This fellow has been basecoated with Snakebite Leather. It will take a good number of layers to get it solid and smooth, but it will happen.

Stage Two

Here is has been washed with a very thinned out Calthan Brown.

Stages Three and Four

Here we add the highlights. The first highlight is done by adding Tan Yellow (VMC) in a 2:1 proportion. As you can see I personally do not favour drybrushing for beards, but rather try to pick out specific strands and concentrate on them. To finish this beard off I added skull white (GW) as a final bright layer (2:1).

Stage One

For the base on this one, I added together Snakebite Brown (VGC) and Vomit Brown (GW).

Stage Two

Here I washed it with a very watered down Calthan Brown.

Stage Three

The highlight was achieved by adding a lot of Skull White (GW) into the base colour (4:1).
[size=x-large]Brown[/size]

Stage One

The base for this is Calthan Brown and Scorched Brown (GW)

Stage Two and Three

A mix of Snakebite Brown and the base (4:1) and a final highlight of Skull White (2:1).

Stage One

This is a nice basic colour of Calthan Brown. One of my favourite base colours for beards.

Stage Two

A 3:1 mix of Skull White acts as the highlight for this beard.

[size=x-large]Black[/size]
Stage One

A base of pure Chaos Black.
Stage Two

A highlight of Deck Tan (3:1) provides a highlight for the black.

When using black, I usually try not to use a bright grey but rather work on getting a grey tone is more natural or neutral.

So there we have it. It is not very special, but rather a few ideas of how to do some beard/hair colours. As I said at the beginning, I find that mixing various shades of brown to be the most effective method. Black is fine, but I find hard to highlight well and I am still working on figuring out a decent way to paint a red/ginger colour for them.

Anyone else find a decent colour tone for hair themselves? Let me know!

Kuffy