Hair Tutorials

Drawing hair and drawing it well is actually exceedingly easy (whether you choose to draw a more simple style or a complex one).

All that hair is (anime or otherwise) is just a combination of hair clumps that overlap.

Here are just some examples of some clumps that you can overlap (except for maybe the braid).



Now onto a quick overview of overlapping them , here are some clumps I drew separately, then overlapped them.

Piece by piece they look very bland, but when combined they look rather nice.



Taking these clumps a step further, you can build decent bangs.






I always found it easiest to start with the bangs (after all they're usually what you see first of the hair). So, let's break this down and I'll show you the bang line (as in hair, lol). Now here, I delineated a more "normal/practical" bang line and also a widows peak/inverted widows peak.
Now, let's go ahead and layer in some bangs with a bit of flow to them :) MIX IT UP
Now as you can see here, I not only drew out the hair line but also another line above the hairline that is equidistant from it at any given point (to the best of my abilities). The reason for this is while keeping in mind the actual hair line, when you draw the hair going up then down (bangs with bounce) they just don't look right unless they match up with the original bang line. They have to be "even" looking to a certain degree.


Since you've got the bangs done, the next step is to just add in the back of the hair.


This is just a step-by-step example of adding in the back of the hair (double parted piggy tail)


The most important thing to keep in mind when adding the back of the hair is figuring out where to part it and what you're going to do with it because as you know a low hanging braid will look way different than a ponytail tied high on a girls head. (please note the spikes, lol, it's a teaser for when I get around to doing tutorials on guys :)

Lets move onto parting the hair. Hair that is pulled back will also look different than hair that is falling loose. I would like to start with drawing partition. Let's look at a high ponytail.


I put arrows in to delineate what direction the hair should flow at the different angles and also added the bang lines for the angles. Now, it is best to draw the lines (flow/partition) with a slight curve and always keep in mind that the hair closest to the characters face will overlap the other layers of hair heading back to the ponytail. Now, even if your character has wavy hair, their hair should still be straighter than the hair coming off the ponytail because it is being pulled back or "forced" into laying that way.


<-Here is a wavier version of the ponytail.
And here is another ponytail (to the side) this one (unlike the previous side ponytail) is pulled tight against the scalp. Although, if the hair is not pulled back very tight then it will be wavier and come off the scalp more than delineated here (err, like the previous side ponytail :)

Onto parting the hair down the middle (this is best for say pigtails, buns and double braids)


Now, I know I drew the buns wrong, they needed to be smaller and more rounded, but I was hoping that this image would work better because you should be able to see more easily how I drew the strands of hair forming them, hope it helped. :)

Here I used the center line (for the face/chin) as a guide for the partition here. In order to keep the pigtails straight I also added another line (they're marked by X's).

From the partition lines here you want the hair to sweep away from them and curve up towards where the pigtails (or buns, I guess) will form.




Here's an example of braids I thought I'd just throw in here. Now you don't have to draw them flowing the way I did (they usually do look better when they hug the neck more, I just thought I'd experiment).

In order to give the image of twisting with braids one must alternate the size/width of the segments. When you make one segment thick make the segment next to it thin, this makes it look like the side with the thick segment is closer to you and that the other is bent back a bit. Then of course when they are more even it will look like the braid is laying flat.



Braids are a lot easier to draw than what you would think (though it took me forever to figure this little trick out, lol)

You can start off with a simple line, make it bend, curve, twist or do whatever you want/however long you want.

Next you simply start adding on the segments, varying their lengths. I showed two different types of braids here, one is squared off and the bottom right is more rounded. Play with what appeals to you more :)

My bottom right braid also shows you step by step on how to shade (for black hair) Though you might want to leave more white through the center, lol. Feel free just to erase some of the black out of the center and lightly draw in the lines (for a more realistic looking braid).

I'll be covering shading a little later in this tutorial


Here I drew the hair parted to the side, notice how it looks interesting but the concept of drawing the partition where you want it first will work perfectly no matter how you part hair. Very simple





This is just an example of wavy hair. Just part it how you want and overlap your layers! Once again, I know it may seem hard at first, but keep at it. . .it's not so bad :)





WINDSWEPT HAIR

As you can see, as indicated by the arrows, the wind is blowing straight up. It is VERY important to know where your bang line is at this point.

Start your clumps at the bangs b/c it is the hair that is closest to you as the "viewer" and will overlap all the other hair.

As for the clumps, keep in mind that when the wind is blowing they will twist and whip about making them curlier than they may normally seem. So play around with adding curls at the tips of them and overlap them a bit more often. I guess you can kinda think of fire when drawing windswept hair, highly erratic yet beautiful. . . . and they kinda look like flames, lol.


It is best to start drawing your bangs from left to right if the breeze/wind is blowing from the left (that way you don't have to erase so much since those will be overlapping the others, the ones furthest right will be overlapped by the ones further left and vice versa if the wind is blowing from right to left.)



The image to the left shows a bit of a slight breeze blowing from Left to Right. The second image to the right portrays wind blowing from Left to Right, but the wind is a bit more vigorous.

Notice the strands on the slight breeze are only curling slightly to the right whereas the hair in the image to the right go almost straight as they are being whipped across her face and around the back.
Here's another example of vigorous windswept hair. (There are no loose strands because the wind is blowing that hard, yet another way to tell how hard the wind is blowing :)

As with all things, this just takes practice, just play with it and keep in mind that if you start your hair doing one thing (such as billowing left or right, then the strands/clumps in near proximity should at least do the same thing, otherwise it'll look like your character is having a seriously bad hair day. . .lol


SHADING HAIR
Yup, you just found my shading section :)

I took some hair clumps and shaded them, keeping it darker at top and bottom and highlighting the center. This can be tedious but it can also go faster if you know what your doing and in my opinion it looks nicer than standard anime shading.


Here, I took standard shading a step further, yeah it looks rough, but it's one of my favorite ways of shading.

I choose where I want highlights (across the top and sectioned here and there where the peak of the curls are)

In between the white sections I try to incorporate strands of hair that are lighter than the standard black.

The darkest part is where the hair overlaps itself.


Really, that's all there is to it, it looks hard but it really isn't. Just get your eraser ready and play with the shading, you can achieve wicked hair effects with minimal effort as long as you get the basics down :)

I would suggest doing the standard shading first, then if you have patience (in some cases a lot of patience) then maybe try the strand-by-strand shading I mentioned earlier. (oooh I love drawing hair! lol)


Here's my prime example of extreme patience. (This is my fan art of Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin)

This is an example of shading by each individual clump of hair. Please notice, that though I shaded by each individual clump, I still kept the whole in mind (made sure some highlights bled together a bit, etc.)















I hope you enjoyed my hair tutorial :) If there's anything you feel needs added or something you'd like to see added (or questions, etc.) feel free to post comments and I'll try to keep up.