How It's Made - Auburn Hair

Welcome to this installment of How It’s Made. I painted Ragnok, Norse Orc Hero - and these instructions contain the steps to reproduce the Auburn Hair for him.

I painted this entirely with ProAcryl paints. At the bottom of the page are links to Monument Guides, as well as a link to their store and my discount code to get the paints for yourself.

As this character as a Norse background I wanted to achieve an brown hair tone, with a slight tint of red. Not a full red hair look, but just enough to bring them together. To do this, Pro Acryl has a nice range of reds and oranges make this happen. You can use this guide and adjust your colors a bit to get more red or more brown in your look.

This is the kind of hair we are going for:

Step 1: I base coated the beard and hair with Mahogany, over a black primer. This has a nice rich chocolaty tone, with some reds and browns mixed together.

Step 2: Next step you can do 1 of 2 ways. If you want to create some texture on the model where there is none, you can dry brush here. If, like this model, you have a large amount of texture already present in the sculpt, you can do some layering. Layer Burnt Sienna all over the area, without going into the deepest areas. If you are dry brushing this, use a bigger brush, and get aggressive, just leave the deep recesses untouched. If you have already painted other parts of the model, this can get messy, so use caution. I used a layer brush and followed the hair follicles without getting paint into the deepest parts.

Step 3: Continue adding more color to the hairs, by layering on Burnt Orange over most of the area, allowing Mahogany and Burnt Sienna to still show. You have the option to Dry Brush instead if you want. Just make sure you do not cover up all of the shadows you previously created.

Step 4: (Optional) Lightly highlight the hair tips and most extreme parts of the beard and hair with Orange. This will allow you to bring out some brighter brown tones in the end by 'over highlighting'. If you want a much more orange or ginger beard, you can go a tad heavier on this. If you want a much more brown beard, skip this step all together.

Step 5: Using a 4:1 thinned solution, wash the entire area with Transparent Brown. Make sure not to let the mixture pool. You will see the shadows become darker, and the orange tones start to trend towards the auburn look you are going for. You can do this a second time if you want to bring more brown out on the beard.

For Monument Hobbies paints and more http://monumenthobbies.com/ref/gamerdadnc and Use Code - 'Gamerdad' for a discount at checkout!

Also, check out their Facebook page for additional Pro Acryl recipes https://www.facebook.com/Monumenthobbies/