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I've finally gotten around to starting to really attempt to paint my Blood Rage vikings, which has been a bloody challenge as they have a hell of a lot detail and there is a real importance in getting the different clans to look visibly different from a distance. It's been a struggle but I think I've finally started to get a collection of colour schemes going.

But anyway, that aside, I've got to the point where I now have to start thinking about painting all the hair and beards. It's not an area I am particularly comfortable, I have a habit of just painting hair black with a bit of grey highlighting, but for Vikings I'm definitely going to have to be looking at a lot of blonde hair and a lot of light brown hair, does anyone have any tips? Blonde hair in particular seems like a challenge, as yellowy highlights on light brown hair looks alright on fantasy miniatures like High Elves, but vikings need a lot more natural look I think. It's an area I've always been pretty lazy with and really tried to avoid anything too adventurous, but the hair is really pivotal to the look of the models in this case, I can't half-arse it!

If your going super light blond

then you could always base yellow then highlight white.

or go white then glaze down with a yellow (with a bit of flesh added IIRC)

I tend to use bleached bone as a mixer for most hair types.
For blond hair bleached bone then add white to it for a drybrush.
For brown hair mix in some flesh to keep it mainly brown.
Light brown hair its bleached bone again!
Red hair;mix some orange into it. Maybe a spot of red depending on the tone you want!
In general I find it is better to avoid using white to lighten it as it gives it a too severe effect,better with(you guessed it!) bleached bone!

Cheers guys, I'd considered using bone or white type colours for highlights, while I have a yellow wash that I don't think I've ever even opened, so both ideas sound pretty do-able, so I'll try both tactics and see what results I can get.

I've got tons of these bloody vikings, so I've got plenty to experiment on! If nothing else, it will be a useful learning experience for the future. My flesh techniques have already benefited from the sheer volume of these guys, so hopefully the hair will do similar.

Which ever colors you choose, shades will help a ton with the detail.

Ushabti Bone with a sepia wash and then two step highlights of Screaming Skull and Pallid Wytch Flesh will get you a nice looking blonde hair :-)

This is by far the best way I have ever found to get natural blond hair.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/259096.page

It comes out like this:

I think choosing the right colours is important, you probably want to avoid strong yellows, and stick with more muted colours like creams and browns. Glazes are really great for hair, because they allow you to completely overdo the highlights, mismatch the colours, and then tone it all back down so it looks natural and subtle. I recommend picking up some glaze medium. This is a pretty simple three step process using glaze, which will give you relatively nice looking hair without needing to get too technical:



As you can see, the highlights can be quite ugly at first, but after a few layers of glaze they will look a lot softer and more natural.

Jesus, that dwarf bear is lovely! Not sure I can really be dealing with quite that amount of work for each of the vikings as there are far too many of them and their hair is a lot smaller than that beard and a lot less dominant on the model, but the general plan and colours look excellent. I'll definitely give a go at trying to make a shorter version of that.

I'll definitely mess around with shades and glazes as well, as I love a shortcut and the mini's do have a lot of very small details in the hair that should be picked out by them.

Now I just have to mess around with all these ideas on the 50 or so tiny vikings and see what works best for me. I think the creams/bones/light browns are definitely the way to go by common consensus, so now I just have to find the optimal combination. Cheers for all the help

The trick to natural hair is small, bright highlight. Hair is naturally quite glossy.

I was taught bleached bone, then sepia wash, then white highlighting. That's for very very fair hair though. Looking forward to seeing your Vikings.

Yeah - never use yellows for hair. Use various browns instead. I've also used bleached bone for blonde hair: