Hi everyone!\

I'm going to show you how to draw hair in a very simple and beginner-friendly way.\

We’ll take it slow and go through each step, from drawing the head shape to adding volume, flow, and shading.

1. Draw The Head Shape

Before we draw the hair, we need to understand the shape of the head.\

Think of the head like an upside-down egg or a ball with a jaw.\

Draw a circle for the top of the head, then add the jawline below.\

Don’t forget to draw a vertical line down the middle, and a horizontal line for the eyes.\

These guidelines will help us place the hair in the right position.

 

Or you can also just use the 3D model head from the clip studio asset library and use it as your sketch.

2. Decide the Comb Parting or Comb Line for Hair Flow

Next, we can start drawing the hair using the comb parting and comb line method. You can observe references regarding how the hair is combed and how the parting of the comb direction looks. By observing the comb parting, in this reference, it will appear as if the hair is divided into the left and right sides. Therefore, we can start drawing it by first making the comb line, then drawing the hair strands according to the comb parting. Draw the hair strands simply as an indication of the hair shape only; you don’t need to make them detailed at this early stage. Once one side is done, you can continue to the other side. Then, if the base shape is done, you can add the hair details. Make the hair details appear to have pointed ends like that.

3. Give Base Color

4. Start The Shading

Here's an additional tip for beginners when starting to shade hair. I often find some common mistakes, which I’ve pointed out in the image.

Before that, I will explain how I determine my shading colors. If it’s for a comic, I want the drawing to be finished quickly, so the shading color I choose is bluish gray with the layer set to multiply. However, if it’s for a detailed drawing like a cover illustration, I will choose the shading color by shifting to the left of the color wheel from the base color, while for the lighting I shift to the right of the base color. It can be said that I change the hue value of the color. And of course, I will choose a darker color for the shading, and a lighter color for the lighting.

Let’s change those habits by trying to divide the hair into several small segments. From those segments, try adding shading in the form of small triangles. That way, the shading will look like that.

5. Add Extra Strand for Detail

The final step is adding detail with additional strands so that the hair looks more natural. I do this using the layer mode borderline effect, with an edge color that matches the hair line art. Make small strands randomly but still naturally, and make the character’s hair volume appear fuller.

6. Add Highlight

Once everything is done, I add lighting with a brighter color according to the direction of the light source.

7. Try out a few atmosphere for your drawing

Next, we can try out a few atmospheres for the coloring. The first step is to make sure all the coloring parts are in one folder. After that, create a new layer placed above the folder with a clipping group and set to multiply mode. Choose a dark blue color for a night atmosphere, and orange for an evening atmosphere. Then, you can create a new layer above it for the additional lighting. Use light blue for the lighting at night and orange for the evening, and change the layer setting to add glow. Also, slightly blur some of the lighting edges. You can also add some extra strands of hair with a color matching the lighting color.