Likely most of you here aren't sci-fi/fantasy modelers, yet you may have a solution to the following problem I'm up against, that you've used on your non sci-fi subjects.
I've been trying to figure out what to use for 'scale hair' on my GeoMetrics brand 'Cyclops' vinyl figure kit, from the early 1960s movie "7th Voyage of Sinbad" [with memorable monsters expertly designed and brought to life by stop-motion animation master Ray Harrihausen]. It's a giant [about 30 ft tall] Pan-like creature: one-eyed, single horned and uniformly covered with thick curly hair from its waist down to its goat-hoofed feet. The finished model is around 8" tall and replicates the movie creature's proportions very well.
The body hair is an integral part of the sculpture/kit. But even if carefully painted with flat acrylics, the sculpted hair would still look like... well, painted hair: no 'hair texture'.
I first thought to use an acrylic paint wash undercoat of appropriate color. Let it dry and apply a clear acrylic coat over that, and then [while the clear acrylic's still wet] liberally sprinkle/cover it with beard clippings from my electric shaver. They look like they'd be 'to scale' [?] and are a variety of black to white color, seemingly appropriate for an older cyclops [a mammal, in this instance].
BUT... I not sure if my beard clippings would eventually 'break down' structurally/biochemically and come loose from the clear, dried acrylic holding them on.
Then I thought; what about using lint from our clothes dryer's lint screen, in place of my beard clippings? They're washed and clean [no micro-level body/hair oil like on my beard], are about the same 'scale' as beard clippings, and have many more colors to choose from.
Some of you may remember styrene animal kits from the 1950s or '60s [for instance the "Perry" squirrel from the Disney movie] that used spray-on 'flocking' provided with the kits, to simulate fur. That technique was my inspiration for doing likewise on my cyclops model. And I know dioramas use a similar 'glue and shake-on material' process.
Any thoughts or other solutions you've come up with for scale hair?
It's an odd modeling question, I know... yet relevant to this and probably other similar projects.