The first thing I did this time around was creating a rough block out of what I wanted the hair to look like in Zbrush. Last time I only used photo references which would vary. This blocking out gave me more of a base so I wasn't so confused when it came to where hair crossed and the volume of the hair.
Next I created a very simple custom hair strand that would create a curve that was thicker at the root and thinner at the ends.
Once I got everything imported and set up, I began blocking out the hair and bun with individual sections. I ended up with 12 small sections by the end of rough blocking.
Next I cleaned up each section to get the correct volume I wanted and then began playing with the texture of the hair to make it curlier create the a more texture pattern.
While the process was going much better than the first time, I still wasn't feeling like the hair was matching the character. So I decided to go back into research but looked less into the traditional Regency hairstyles and more into the wigs and hair of the Bridgerton show.
The most recent addition to the Bridgerton canon was Queen Charloette: A Bridgerton Story. I found young Queen Charlotte's hair at her wedding to be exactly what I wanted to do. The wig was styled with an afro int he back and locs in the front.
I decided to start again, this time on this hair style with a little twist. Instead of dread locks forming the front of the hair, I decided to do bantu knots since it would be more time sensitive and not exactly like the original wig.
Initially the hair looked like what you see below. The bantu knots are parted perfectly but the afro looks thin, unshaped, and the curl pattern frizzy in a way I don't want. What I decided to do was created a new custom hair system for the afro to have all the curves be the same size. This will make the afro look much fuller without using a lot of curves and have a more defined curl pattern.
After fixing those parts and applying them to my model the hair looked much better.
I also added a few pearls to break up the hair a bit and add more elegance to the hair.
This hair journey, like many people I know (especially Black women), was full of twists and turns but I loved every second of it. I use to be told that creating black hair in 3D was too complicated to create a system for. Now in my own personal project, and slowly in the industry, that's becoming a false statement.
I studied my own curl pattern, crashed Blender too many times to count, and did 23+ hair tests to get the hair I wanted for this project. It's not perfect and needs improvement with time. Nevertheless, it's a step in the right direction to make all kinds of hair accessible to create in 3D.
