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I'm painting a reaper fantasy knight, and was wondering how to make blonde hair, without just painting his hair yellow.

I do bronzed flesh, bronzed flesh/bone, then bone. Works pretty well.

Start with a brown or a tan, and then just slowly blend your way up to a nice golden yellow.



Conversely, you could start with a not too bright yellow, put a flesh ink wash on it, and then a few minor brighter yellow highlights on top. (this meathod is faster, but results are more hit and miss).

Depends on the style of blonde you want.

Cartoon blonde: Over white, Beasty Brown basecoat. Follow with a bright yellow like Sunburst yellow, leaving the brown only in the deepest recesses of the hair. Highlight with sunburst + white, and then touch hotspots with pure white.

Dirty blonde/more realistic blonde: over black or white, Kommando Khaki basecoat. Highlight with bleached bone, then bleached bone + white, then hotspots with pure white. You could also mix in tiny amounts of yellow to each mix to get alittle more pop.

I usually start with a black base, put desert yellowover that, then a dry brushing of sunburst yellow, then a dry brushing of bleached bone

Strat with a base coat of snakebite or cobra leather ( depending on what brand of colors you have GW or Vellejo ) then on your pallet mix in small amounts of bleach bone. to build it up, just keep gradually adding bleach bone to it till its as light as you want it. Dry brushing or manual highlights eithe works well, just keep it thin and and you should like the out come.

The recent WD has a breakdown of just such a color. the Felix Jaeger model was painted with such a formula:
50-50 Bronzed Flesh/Bestial Brown
Highlight 1 - Bronzed Flesh
Highlight 2 Bronzed Flesh/Bleached Bone
Highlight 3 Bleached Bone

Looks like a really good blonde, there's hints of yellow in there without looking fake. Convincing.

For my Warmachine Haley model I did this:

basecoat with a brown
highlight with a yellowish tan color (I think it was like pale sand or something, will look when I get home)
highlight with that color mixed with a paler version (bleached bone)
ink with very thin chestnut or brown ink (brings it all together)
final highlight with a light color, very slight highlights

turned out awesome.