hair/beard

The hair and beard is the one part of the overall mesh I am not completely happy with as I was unable to funny replicate the idea of hair.

I started the process by first masking out the areas where the hair and beard are placed on the head, I then extracted this from the head creating a separate mesh which I was then able to build up on.

I then chose to do the beard first as I thought this would be simpler to do compared to the hair. I started by using some claybuild brush to get some shape and then I went to a low sub division and moves it out forming the long beard.  Once I was happy with the shape and size, I began to use the claybuild up brush as well as the standard brush to try and create the illusion of hair strands. I found this quite hard to achieve and although I watched a number of tutorials all showing the same method I struggled to re create it. I did however come to a standard I was happy with which did have some definition of hair. 

I then wanted to try and mould it onto the head as at the moment it looked like it was just stuck on, the only way I could think about doing this was by moving out sections of the edge of the beard that connected to the face to make it look like it was blending in. 

Once happy with the beard I started on hair. I did not model the entire head as I knew the top half would be covered by the top hat, so I placed the top hat on the head to get a good idea where modelling should start, I then hid the top hat so I could see what I was doing.

I found this part hard as well as Uncle Sam has quite curly hair that really sticks out. I started by first getting the shape of the hair as best I could, I then started to use the standard brush to begin to define the curls, but I found it hard to really bring them out. I tried a number of times in different ways but still was unable to really bring them out. So I was going to have to settle with keeping the hair flat but still give the impression of curls. I used the alpha that I used for creating wrinkles in the faces, and used with the standard brush, I was able to create some nice strands of hair. I used this brush around the head slowly building it up until I was at a result I was happy with at this time. 

Here he is with his hair and beard wearing his top hat. I am happy with the standard it is at, at the moment, aside from the hair and beard I feel he is really beginning to look good and resemble Uncle Sam.