Wavy hair tutorial

I've been planning to re-do my old wavy hair tutorial for ages(here if anyones interested XD gah), but I finally decided to do it today, when I found this fabulous base^^ This tutorial is written for those who have some knowledge of the tools in Adobe Photoshop Elements, or just Adobe in general.

Good luck!

1. pick your base. I used a gorgeous one from Stardom Velocity. You can, of course, pick one thats smaller of full veiw, I just couldn't be bothered with doing clothes :P

2. click layer --> new --> layer, or hit Ctrl+Shift+N. call it hair. Pick the Pencil Tool, and start making your outline with the first colour of the palette.

3.Clean up the lines, and fill with the second colour of the palette.

4. Duplicate your layer. Click layer --> duplicate layer, or go to the layer palette, rightclick the layer and click duplicate layer. This is an important step, don't skip it!

5. Pick your paintbrush, and start drawing the stands in the hair with your darkest colour. If you're unsure of what the texture of hair is like, just google "hair", and check out some pictures for reference.

6. Duplicate the layer again. You don't neccesary have to do it, but I prefer to. Now, with the third colour, draw lighter stands with the paintbrush.

7. Duplicate the layer. Again, you don't have ton With the fourth colour, draw stands where the light will fall. On the top of her head, where the waves are closest to us - where they go outwards. Not right behind her, or where the waves go inwards. Confused? See my example^^

8. Now pick your smudge tool. Make the stands softer and stuff. Go on, its fun!

9. If you want to, you can skip the next steps and go down to step 11, but I would like some more shadows and highlights^^ 

Pick burn, set it to 9 pixels, midtones and exposure 33%. This, of course, varies with the colours of the hair, size of your doll, and the effect you want. So if you're making blonde hair, set the exposure to a lower number, and if the hair is black, a higher one. Experiment to find out what you like the best^^

Add shadow to the area behind her, where the waves go inwards, and behind her ear(check out the example)

10. Aaand now it's time for the highlights. Chose the dodge tool. My settings are: 10-ish pixels, highlights(you can set it to midtones as well, for a less shiny 
result), exposure 33%(yes I like the number 33 XD). Go over the places whert the light would naturally fall: On the top of her head, where the waves are closest to us - where they go outwards. See my example. 

 

BUT before you do this step: DON'T OVERUSE THE DODGE TOOL! Please! Gah, I've seen so many dolls where the artist has done this. Not nice. Unless you're going for a really fake-ish style, then don't. Just.. Don't XD Example of overuse:

Not nice, don't ya agree? GAH

11. Now, go back to the layer with the outline and the fill. Pick your magic wand, uncheck the Continuous box and the Anti-aliased box if they're checked, and select the transparent areas. Hide the layer and go back to the "hair" layer. Hit Ctrl+X. It should clean up the mess, leaving you with this:

12. You can skip this step if you want to, but I like adding some stray stands to create more life. Pick the paintbrush, and draw some stands here and there, like I've done.

13. Go to the layer where you have the base. Draw shadow underneath the fringe, and in the parting. Just some stuff about the hair parting: If you look in the mirror, you can see that you can see your scalp in that place the hair parts. Most dollers tend to leave this area dark, but I like to shade it with the colours of the base, and the colours of the hair. Yeah, I know I'm crap at explaining, but English is not my native language, so bear with me, kay? XD 

My end result:

I added some makeup and a chocker, and ta da!

Don't like the colour? Fear not, you can just recolour it! Go to Enchance --> Adjust Colour --> Colour Variations and fiddle round with the settings^^

see, easy peasy^^

I'd love to hear what you think of this tutorial, I'd also love to see what you've done with my tutorial, email it to me, and I'll put your doll here!