80s anime hair advice? (lots of reference pics)

AceSV · September 18, 2015, 10:58am

(sorry I don’t know how to resize images on this forum)

I’m trying to make a model for 3D printing with a tomboyish or punkish hair style. I’m feeling really out of my depth, and I hope I can gain some insight from more experienced modelers here.

The character is Willow the Wallaby. Here are some test drawings: http://acethesupervillain.deviantart.com/art/Willow-the-Wallaby-499070734
http://acethesupervillain.deviantart.com/art/Willow-the-Wallaby-again-501353795 http://acethesupervillain.deviantart.com/art/Willow-the-Wallaby-Drawing-544699574

For 3D printing, I decided that these styles were too 2D and would probably become fragile after 3D printing, and I wanted to try something a little different. I searched around for some inspiration, and found some old 80s anime hair that I like. Like my drawings, I think the 80s drawing suffer from being too 2D, but they strike as closer to being 3D-able than mine are.

Here is Eve from Megazone 23. In the anime, Eve’s hair seems to be a kind of iridescent blob which would be an interesting approach if rendering, but not useful for 3D printing.

And this figure. I like it, except that it has lost the spikeyness of the 2D which I liked.

Next candidate is this pink haired girl from Prefectural Earth Defense Force. I like the upward grain in the back of the head.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2a/PrefecturalEarthDefenseForce-EPalbumcover.jpg/220px-PrefecturalEarthDefenseForce-EPalbumcover.jpg

Couldn’t find any figures for Prefectural Earth Defense Force.

And finally, the main character from Outlanders.

I found a figure for this series, but I’m not too fond of it:

I also like NewSea’s Holic hairstyle for the Sims3. While this is 3D, it is not optimal for 3D printing:

The main thing I want out of this hairstyle is to portray Willow’s personality as adventurous and unfeminine. While sketching up ideas, I’ve noticed that smoothing out the hair take that personality away from the hair style, so part of my challenge is to find a way to keep a textured looking hair without using any render tools and without making anything too fragile to be 3D printed. Sculpting Mode might be useful, but it strikes me as a very arduous way to get it done. I think it would be helpful to have some way to make “hair texture” geometry than I can then make to follow the flow of a low poly hair shape that I can easily maneuver.

erickBlender · September 18, 2015, 1:28pm

Are going for NPR type? If so there is an active facebook group they may help you out. check this out https://www.facebook.com/groups/BNPRandFreestyle/

AceSV · September 18, 2015, 2:48pm

If I was rendering, yes, but I’m trying to make a model for 3D printing. The most likely scenario is that it will print entirely without color or texture, like this thing:

So it needs to be done entirely with geometry.

pauljs75 · September 18, 2015, 4:33pm

Seems you don’t like the 3D prints you have existing examples of, but those are probably as close as you can get it given the limitation of the material and process.

You’ll probably hate hearing this, but for that flowy and/or puffy hair your other option is to make a doll wig. (So design your figurines bald so a wig can get glued on. You may still want horns or other decoration as part of the head though.) Not only is it another step in logistics (having to ship where the wig is glued on and styled, and then out to whoever recieves the figurine), but it takes practice to do it right. Upside is that it’s more realistic, and when done well it’s about spot-on. There seem to be some good examples on YouTube if you want to learn to do it yourself. (Best ones seem to be for “ball joint dolls”, as they go into detail on their projects. Perhaps because that hobby is less like kids toys and are more-or-less articulated figurines.) Other than that, may want to consider people that already do this, and fire some emails around to see if they’re willing to take on that part of the project.

AceSV · September 18, 2015, 4:49pm

I’m using ShapeWays, if you’ve heard of it. It allows users to order a designer’s model directly from the 3D printing factory. Ideally, all parts should be included in the model, so that the customer has a finished product delivered to their door.

It can’t be impossible to do with geometry, there are all kinds of anime models with crazy plastic hair:

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/OTc3WDExMjg=/z/WH0AAOxyRhBS7F71/$_59.JPG?set_id=880000500F

I’m just having a hard time visually dissecting these things for duplication.

AceSV · September 19, 2015, 4:23am

So I’ve been poking around the internet a bit more and I’ve realized that the answer (or an answer) has been right under my nose the whole time:

(It’s over 9000!) (shut up!) Even though the shape is not what I want, the texture in the hair looks very useful. I think rather than going up and back, I could make the hair particles go up and forward to get the 80s look.

Here are some more references I found.

More: https://deluscar.wordpress.com/2013/03/24/to-aru-majutsu-no-index-ii-accelerator-by-alter/
This could be done with lots (lots) of small strands, but they also smooth out into one big mess at the top. Better pictures of that on the website.

Another possible solution:

Smaller strands like this ichigo might be the way to go.

Really like this one:

This one has a nice loose look without doing a billion little painful strands. It’s the kind of messy look that I thought would be impossible to nail in 3D, but it looks great on this one.

And for good measure:

To be honest, I think that’s too spiky for 3D printing, at least for the 54mm scale I want, but I like the texture detail and might provide some problem solving.

But still, there’s a difference between seeing it and doing it…