Hello everyone.
This tutorial has several functions. First it is a detailed set of instructions for creating highly realistic eye lashes and eye brows using the standard MH objects. You will see why it is best that eyelashes and eyebrows are separate objects; actually for this level of texture work, it is a necessity.
I'm going to use Blender 2.74, Inkscape 0.48, Gimp 2.8 and Yafaray 0.1.1.5. The goal is to create the lashes and brows with vector graphics, and only use raster graphics for the final rendering stages. This approach is quite painstaking--no apologies here--but I believe it is the most professional way to solve the problem of 'hairs and shadows'.
So, here is the first file, a Scalable Vector Graphics file. I've only completed (roughly) the first layer of top eyelashes, and I will be continually updating this file.
http://www.geekopolis.ca/svg/ginaCaranoEyeLashes3.svg
Here is the first screen capture:
and the second, the work area:
I had some serious headaches getting this to work, until I discovered the source of the problem, which has to do with how Blender/Python manages its interior object database. You have to create a new material for the eyelash or eyebrow mesh; only that will get the whole process to work. After that, the settings are simple: render using transparent shadows; diffuse texture must use alpha; the matte texture (the inverted-color png) must use a transparency setting of -1.0 .