Is It Difficult to Create Curled Hair? Quickly Create Curled Hair Effect!

Description：

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to create curled hair. I used the modifiers of a Blender add-on, 3D Hair Brush, to create the curled hair. I will show you the steps of creation, as well as some tips and skills. Hope this will help you!

Analysis

The curled hair can be created through the Curl of the clump modifier, and can be separated into two layers: inner layer and outer layer. The curl of the inner layer is more random, and the the curl of the outer layer is more regular.

The outer layer of the curled hair can further separated into three sections: left, middle and right. The left and right sections are basically identical, and there are less curls in the middle section which are more curled.

The change of the direction of the curls is modified by the Comb brush.

Except for the large curls, there are also some small curls which more curled and obvious. This will be the key to emphasize the details.

Create the Direction：

First, we'll need to add some guidelines. The number of guidelines is determined by the number of clumps. There are not a lot of clumps, so we don't need too many guidelines.

After the number of guidelines is determined, we need to then determine the length of the guidelines. The Length can be determined by repeatedly combing the direction.

We don't need very accurate guidelines when we are tweaking the shape through modifiers, an overall direction and rough layers are enough, and the curls and randomness are not required yet. As for the profile, we just need to determine a rough shape without details, and we can modify the details after we modify the shape.

The direction can be combed layer by layer. Starting from the inner layer, and then upward. The selected hair can be marked with colors for the later modifications.

The overall direction can be separated into three sections: the back of head, the middle of the head and the top of the head. As for the layers, they should be place one upon one, we start with the back of head, then the middle of head, and at last, the top of head. When combing each layer's direction, we also need to create the profile and the fluffy effect.

The back of head:

The middle of head：

The top of head：

Notes：

1. Avoid cross between guidelines, separate them into layers for later shaping.
2. In the early steps of creation, we don't need to create the details of direction or the profile, nor do we need to consider the curls.

Create the Shape：

We mainly use Curl and Wave in Kink Type of Clump modifier to create the curled hair.

Curl: The advantage is that it's more stereoscopic, it's real curl. The disadvantage is that it's too fluffy, and the guidelines are closer and are tend to cross.

Wave: The advantage is that it's quicker to create a single view, and there is no cross. The disadvantage is that it's 2D instead of stereoscopic, the curls of some views need to be modified manually.

The shape of curls can also be created in two layers, from inner layer to the outer layer, and profile first, details second.

Inner Hair Shape:

Select Simple mode for the children, the advantage is that it's closer to the direction of the guidelines.

First, add a clump modifier, and create a basic clump to modify the curl effect. When creating the inner layer, we should focus on "Curl". We set Frequency to 2 or 3, which creates 2 or 3 curls. Increase Amplitude, by default, the tip of hair is not affected, we can enable Curve and raise the curve of the tip, and lower the curve of the root to avoid crossing.

Options:

Effect:

After modifying the curl, we can notice that the curls are quite regular, we can enable Random of Frequency, and modify Seed to make the curls vary.

Options

Effect:

After modifying the curl, we can notice that the curls are quite regular, we can enable Random of Frequency, and modify Seed to make the curls vary.

Options

Effect

Outer Hair Shape:

The shape of the outer hair is different, there are three separated sections, left, middle and right, which make it convenient to modify the curl effect.

1. For the left section, we add a clump modifier, use the curve of Shape to control the change of clump. The curled hair in the left section is formed by multiple small curls, and the overall frequency is consistent. Increase Amplitude, and set Frequency to 4. The curl near the root can be excluded by the curve.

2. The Amplitude and Frequency of the right section are the same as the left section, just set the Amplitude to a negative value.

3. The curled hair in the middle section differs from the left and right section in the Frequency, the clumps are similar. So we just need to decrease the Frequency.

4. At last, we add Noise modifiers to each layer, and the options are similar to that of the inner layer.

Effect

Tip: When modifying the outer layer, we need to avoid any crossing with the inner layer. If the inner layer and the outer layer are close, and the amplitude is too large, it may cause crossing.

5. The tips are quite tidy without difference in length. We need to add a Length modifier to add some randomness is the length.

Effect：

Detailed Shape

After the overall shape is completed, we then turn to the details. The plan is to add small curls, and they are smaller than hair of the inner layer, and the direction is also different. There are two ways of creating the small curls, the first one is to copy the inner layer and create a new layer, and then modify the clump size and direction; The second one is to add a new layer, and use Draw brush and Comb brush to create guidelines with random directions.

Method one: The outer three sections need to be detailed, and we duplicate this layer to create a new one, then we change the size of the clumps by changing the radius, and comb them with Comb brush to separated them from the inner layer.

When we modify the direction, we need the new layer to be more fluffy than the inner layer, and stereoscopic. The guidelines should be more curled.

Method two: Some random curled hair can not be created by modifying the options easily, so we can use Draw brush and Comb brush. Draw a rough shape of curl with Draw brush and then modify it with Comb brush and make it more stereoscopic.

Effect：

Next, we are going to create the most messy hair on the outside. Copy the outer layer and create a new layer, decrease the number of children, add Noise modifiers, decrease Magnitude, enable the curve of Magnitude to make the root less messy, and decrease Size.

Options

Effect

Final result

Summary

1. When creating the directions, a good method is quite important. Creation in layers and combing the guidelines layer by layer can improve the efficiency and make the work easier.
2. Curl and Twist are two important options for creating shapes. We can avoid a lot of manual work by making good use of proper options.
3. The procedures of creating curled hair focus on curl and layers, the hair is separated into different layers according to the different types of curls.

Now the steps of creating female curled hair are finished. I hope this will help you in the future, and see you next time.