Bad Hair Day! Help!

[Lunar Unit]

I'm having a bad hair day with this character I'm trying to create. She's a caricature of a lady and she's supposed to look cartoony and plastic. i don't really want real looking hair. Perhaps I need to simplify. Any ideas or tutorials on making this kind of hair? Included is the bad hair gal and the real gal as well as a character style I'm trying to come close to.

[Skinner3D]

:stumped: May I ask what type of bad hair day you are having? It looks good to me.

[cobaltman]

If you are wanting a "plastic" hairdo like what is found on some dolls, bump maping would probably do the trick. Light bump mapping with a texture that has lines will work.

I would probably make an image pic with lines. Since it will be for the bump mapping of a plastic hairdo, you don't need too much detail. As for how to apply it, I would suggest using UV texturing in this case. Hair in a hairdo bends and contours to the shape of the hairdo. UVs can help a lot with this and make it much easier.

After making the UV, you can apply it to surface attributes such as bump.

:goodluck:

[Lunar Unit]

I'm glad you think so but you see I've never done cartoon hair before and I feel like I've slopped a blob on her head. I'm also not so good at texturing so I don't know if I should texture the hair or just make it shiny.

I think the hair is reminiscent of dracula's hair doo (played by Gary Oldman) in that 90's version of Dracula.

[Lunar Unit]

I'm gonna work on the bump map idea and see if it spruce's up the look of the hair! Thanks!

[Lunar Unit]

So here's what I've done with her hair. I smoothed it out a bit and left it be for the time being because I'd been looking at it too long. I added a few delicate accessories to jazz up her look, namely eyelashes and earrings. It's amazing what a little mascara will do for a person. I feel a bit better about her now and next I'll go to surfacing her and her hair. Thanks for the tips!

[THREEL]

Hey Lunar,

How's it going? Remember Wil the Pyrite Rock Head I showed you earlier? Well, after seeing what you want to do with your lady friend's hair, I thought I'd update Wil's. Please, let me know what you think.:D

I used a bump map procedual texture, STClouds (Cirrus), I believe, and just experimented with the different settings until I got what looked good to me.:thumbsup: The cool thing is you can make some of your settings more than 100%, which sometimes can be just what the doctor ordered.:cool:

Hope this gives you some inspiration.

THREEL (AL)

[Lunar Unit]

Say, That's not bad. That is what I'm looking for. I've been actually atempting to put make a UV map for her hair and then apply the texture but the problem is that after I make the map and try to use it in the surface editor, nothing happens. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong or missing a step. I shall play around a bit more with the proceedural texture idea, though. The problem I've had is that the texture goes all one way and doesn't move with the contours of her hair. Here's an update of her look. As you can see, her hair is badly lacking style in the texture area.