Making Bodyhair with Photoshop?

Guys, what is the best approach that you've found for making body hair (arm, legs, and chest hair) using Photoshop?

I've tried two different methods myself with less-than-appealing results....

The first method involved drawing dark squiggly lines, setting it as a brush pattern and then painting it on. It came out looking like dark squiggly lines repeatedly stamped on a chest, and not hair at all.

The other method I tried was to paint sections of the chest area grey, adding motion and radial blurs, and then setting the mode to "Dark Light." This method worked a little bit better, but all one color, not really allowing me to show areas of denser hair growth (middle of the chest) in contrast to lighter hair growth (left and right flank of the stomach.) Also, remembering to change the direction of the blurs for different areas of the chest, arms, facial stubble, etc... was a real pain in the -...um...- neck.

I know that with proper patience and time I could adjust, adjust, adjust and make either method look better and more realistic, but right now I'm frustrated and need a break from it till I have a good plan of attack.

I'm curious to know what other options I have available. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Try these brushes, I use his fur brushes with good success. Also helps to use a drawing tablet, they are very reasonably priced these days, I bought mine for < $100.

http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=28906

Drawing tablets definitely help with Photoshop brushes. You get pressure, direction, and tilt controls at your fingertips (with Wacom). The rest of the Photshop options like opacity variance and scatter variance are great features for hair too. I find it easy to simulate almost any type of hair from straight to curly with a few brush combinations that are nothing more than 2-3 curved lines that look like hair follicles. Also, work at 4 times the resolution you intend the final image to be at. That is a must.

Hi, try using the brushes from david nagel (do a google search). and also i found it way easier if I use a drawing tablet.



@ Nam "Also, work at 4 times the resolution you intend the final image to be at. That is a must."

Geeze!! I guess this explains some of my troubles. When I made my skin i didnt work anywhere near there, prob why the leg hair looked a bit blurry? Ah well. I`ll know for future work now