Shaba1 wrote:I have been trying to find a way of doing a single braided ponytail coming out of the very back of a female head for years. Personal Note: My favorite hairstyle ofr a woman. I have made several attempts using a few tutorials off the web but NONE of them have quite looked right.
You have two options: (1) using the basic mesh tools in Blender, create a hair twist. Not quite a braid, but it does work with two plaits;
(2) Once you get to a three-plait braid, you need to use a different strategy: either use three curves, or three circle meshes and extrude them.
Manuel's three plait braid uses the second strategy, which requires a fair bit of skill with the proportional editing tool, and careful use of free extrusion (extruding without axis constraints).
I would suggest using instead highly-subdivided Bezier curves, and then actually creating a braid, the same as one would in real life. Most modellers shy away from Bezier curves, however. as it takes a lot of practice to use them smoothly. With this technique, you can then use the poly reducer tool to create braids with a few (or as many polygons) as you like.
What really kills me is that back in 2010 a programmer turned up on the forum who offered to create a 'braid interface' for MH.