INTRODUCTION

Hair is often one of the hardest things to draw properly due to its complexity, and since there’s multiple types of hair and hairstyles, the combinations and options can get a bit overwhelming quickly. 

 

This tutorial is for learning step by step the underlying principles of how it all works, understanding how they can be applied in different ways, and using some of CSP’s tools to make it a bit easier.

 

Learning how to draw a specific hairstyle is one thing, but if you learn how hair behaves and why, you’ll be able to draw a variety of hairstyles and even come up with some of your own, so let’s get started.

1- The Structure of the Hair

1.1- The Head

Since hair can get very complicated really fast, it is easier if we have a solid foundation, and in this case that means first drawing the character bald on a separate layer, so that we have a good reference of where the hair is going to be placed and we have more freedom to make adjustments.

Otherwise we could end up with a structure that feels wrong.

If you want to make sure the hair of your character makes sense from a structural level, the first two things you have to focus on are the head of your character, and the hairline. These 2 things will guide the start of your drawing, so make sure to draw them properly before worrying about the hair.

In real life, the hairline is roughly at the same distance from the eyebrows as the eyebrows are from the nose. This works as a general guide to follow also in stylized art, but there can be exceptions depending on the art style.

 

The hairline is what will give us the reference for where the hair is attached, so the shorter the hair, the more important it becomes to pay attention to the hairline, since more of it will be visible, and sometimes just changing the hairline can make the character look different.

1.2- Simplification

When we first look at hair, it is easy to be a bit overwhelmed or confused by all the different shapes that the strands can make, but there’s really no need to tackle it all at once.

Something we have to keep in mind constantly, not just for the shape of the hair, but other things like shading is to keep it simple, don’t over complicate it.

 

Even though hair can look really messy and complicated, it can often be simplified a lot to a couple of easy shapes, and this can be done regardless of the hairstyle. 

The key is to focus on the big overarching shapes without getting distracted by smaller structures or strands.

 

A good way to practice this idea is to look at photo references of people or other drawings, and try to draw a simplified version of the hair.

At this point it doesn’t really look much like hair, but understanding this simplified version is what will help us make more complex shapes later on.

1.3- Segments

A good way for understanding how most hairstyles work is by dividing it into several segments depending on the region of the head.

Knowing this segments can help us to better simplify the shapes of the hair.

Each segment of the head can be further divided into smaller segments, but for now this is all we need to understand the basics

Taking these segments into account, we can divide the hair into different pieces.

It is important to remember that they help just as a general guide, since a lot of hairstyles won’t fit nicely in this division.

Thinking like this will help us later, since there are hairstyles that look significantly more complicated, but can be turned into something easier if we understand how to divide in segments.

However, it is still important to keep them in mind since they will be a useful tool whenever we want to create our own hairstyles, since we can mix and match different shapes from different hairstyles as long as we put them in the corresponding segment

2- Shapes

Now that we know the general shapes and where to place them, we can start thinking about how to use more defined or specific shapes.

As a general rule, you can simplify them like this:

. Ribbons for flat chunks 

. Tubes for locks and braids

. Spheres for puffs

Sometimes there will be shapes that are a combination of 2 of them

Once you have the simple shapes, you can start dividing them into smaller shapes to add more detail.

When adding smaller shapes, it can start looking messy or repetitive really fast, so we need to add variations

You can add variation with the length of shapes, size, width, or direction. 

A good general rule to keep the shapes visually appealing is to divide the shapes in a 70-30 ratio, or in big, medium and small. 

Each of the resulting shapes can be divided again, but you have to be careful to not make it over complicated, just add layers or shapes until you reach the level of complexity desired.

You can also use holes as shapes. They are negative space, but they still help give the hair more complexity without compromising the overall shape.

If you have trouble trying to make adjustments to the shapes of the hair, a great tool you can use is to apply the border effect to your layer to create overlaps without crossing your lines.

Just go to Layer Property and select Border Effect, you can customize the thickness and color of your lines. If you want to, you can do it multiple times using more layers to add complexity.

2.1 Shape Language

The shape language you’ll use for the hair will also depend on 2 mayor things:

1- The type of the hair. Depending on how straight or curly the hair you picked is, different shapes will make a better job at depicting it.

2- the level of stylization of the character. Usually, the level of detail in the hair is similar to the level of detail of the rest of the character so that it fits better. Although there are exceptions, as a general rule, try to keep the shape language of the hair in line with that of the character.

3- Volume

The main ways we have to convey the idea of volume is through shapes and shading. Having the appropriate shapes is not enough if you’re not depicting the shadows properly.

 

This includes the shadows that the hair casts on the body or other objects, and the shadows they cast on it, since it makes it feel a bit more tangible.

Since we need some level of contrast between the lights and shadows of the hair to give it volume, a good general rule is to focus on the shadows for light colored hair, and on the lights for dark colored hair.

To help sell the idea of volume more, we also have to consider how the hair interacts with other things besides light, like other objects or gravity.

Unless you’re drawing a character floating or with hair blowing in the wind, you’ll have to consider how gravity affects the hair. 

 

In general, longer hair is more affected than shorter hair, and straight hair is more affected than curly hair

As for other objects interacting with the hair, most of the time it’s hats or hair ties for ponytails. 

A shape that’s helpful to remember when dealing with ponytails or braids is that of a balloon being pinched. If we want to keep the volume consistent, the hair around the pinching point will look bigger.

4- Texture

When we want to add texture, once again we’ll have to do it through shapes and shading.

The first thing to consider is the type of hair we’re dealing with, as in , how straight or curly the hair is. For this, the 3 main points of focus you have to keep in mind are the silhouette, the edge of the shadows, and the highlights.

Don’t try to add texture to every single part, or you can end up over complicating it

The type of hair will also help dictate how to use the highlights. Straight and smooth hair have a more consistent highlight, while rough hair has considerably less highlights, or sometimes none at all.

The more contrast there is between the highlights and the rest of the hair, the more glossy or smooth the hair will look.

After that, you can slowly add more and more texture to the hair either by creating more shapes, or using different textured brushes.

5- Putting it all Together

Taking every step into account, you’ll be able to slowly add more and more complexity and personality to the hairstyles you draw. It’s easy to get caught up on the rendering, but if you go slowly, building every part while having an understanding of them, you’ll see a fast improvement.

Conclusion

There are countless different hairstyles and combinations, and since the hair can already be complicated to draw, it can get overwhelming, so I hope this article helps you break down the complexity into smaller, easier to understand parts in a way that you can later apply it in your own unique way.

 

It is one thing to learn how to draw one specific hairstyle, but by looking at every part and understanding them, we are able to apply what we learn in new different ways

I hope this article helped you, and if you have any doubts or questions, let me know in the comments.