A. Introduction

Hello everyone ~

 

Talking about hairstyle, we all know that it play an important role in character design. Hairstyle not only deciding how your character looks, but also show a lot about his or her personality.

 

In this quick tips, I will show you my way to create a hairstyle, based on their own characteristics. I also show you guy some tips for making the hair drawing looks better using Clip Studio Paint's original basic brush.

 

So, let's get started !

B. General Structure

First, we have to remember the general structure of the head. At the beginning, never draw hair without sketching the skull. It is necessary to make sure that your character's head form not to be distorted.

 

With the example in the image above, I always draws hair start from the [Hairline], and when it reaches [The highest bulge of hair], it will be drawn flow down because of the gravity. Drawing the bulge of hair make your hairstyle looks fuller.

 

The part inside the red-lined is the hair's area. Please make sure the distance from the skull to the red-lined is the same. The red-lined should follow around the skull.

The hair can be separated into different part, and you can choose where it comes from and the direction that it flows to.

C. Quick TIPS: Making your hair drawing looks naturally

To make your hair drawing looks naturally, please remember 3 things:

 

1, The direction of the hair locks.

2, The width of the hair locks.

3. The length of the hair locks.

 

These three things SHOULD NOT be the SAME.

The more variety you draw, the more natural it gets.

 

But there is a thing, the length can be an exception. Some hairstyle have the same length for all hair locks. And in this situation, you should try to draw more and more different width and direction for them.

 

In the example, the one on the left has the same length, width and direction, that make it looks rigid and boring; while the one on the right has the width too narrow, that make the hair looks tangled, and it does not have the softness that the hair should have.

 

D. How a hairstyle deciding your character looks and characteristics ?

First, let take a look of this.

As you can see, this is one character with different hairstyle. Even when I don't change too much her make up, but you still can feel they are 10 different girls. This is the power of hairstyle. I will put an extra part at the end of this tutorial to show you why I choose this hairstyle for each girl, based on her own characteristic.

 

So let's move on to the next tips for creating character's hairstyle.

There is a lot of standard to decide an hairstyle for your character, so I just give you some examples, based on my experience of creating my own character. Everytime I create a character, I always ask myself some questions:

 

1, Where is she/he from ? How old is she/he ?

 

• His or her nationality or kind decides how he/she looks, his/her hair's color; while his/her age decides which style is suitable for his/her generation.

 

For example: An Asian has a black / dark brown hair, while an European has the bright color hair.

 

2, What does she/he do ?

 

• The occupation also decides how his/her hair looks like. It is not suitable for a primary school students to dyed their hair, right ? Of course, there is no limit for you to let yourself feel free to creating your own character, but there is always some unwritten law to make your character looks more natural and realistic.

 

For example: I choose an short haircut with some highlight for a rock star.

 

3, What is her/his most outstanding characteristic ?

 

• His or her characteristic, habits, hobbies also play a huge role in design hairstyle. An introvert person is hard to be seen in a colorful and break-all-the-way hairstyle. A mature never comes with a pig tails hairstyle. And a modern person will never let her hair old-fashioned.

 

Knowing about your character's personality, habits, hobbies will let you create them easier, and make them more memorable and easier to be recognized among the others.

 

I will put a chart below, just based on my opinion, about how personality affects to design hairstyle.

I just use 4 kind of personalities for example, so it may be incomplete.

 

In my opinion, a dark / natural color hair make you look more mature, while the bright / dyed color one make you look youthful. Similarly, a natural hair is suitable for an traditional, simple person, while the styled haircut can give a more modern look to the owner.

E. Tutorial: How I color / paint my hair ?

I. Tools: I use a basic Gouache brush of Clip Studio Paint for all the sketch, fill based color and shading, painting. I just pick it and use, and I don't change any settings of this brush.

II. Step by Step

 

Now I will take you through my progress to painting hair, the way that I usually do in most of my artwork. I hope I can explain how I do it clearly enough for you to understand it easily.

1: Sketch

 

Like I said before, at the beginning, we should never drawing hair without drawing the skull first.

 

I decided this character is a gentle, girly girl so I am thinking about a long, curly and an ombre color hair.

 

Using the tips in section C, I make sure that all the direction, the width and the length of all the hair locks are not the same.

2. Based color:

 

I create a layer under the sketch layer and give it a flat based color. And then I use [Lock transparent pixel] and add more color to make the hair more value.

3. Shading

 

Create a new layer. Choose [Clip to Layer Below] and [Multiply] mode to shade the hair.

Decide the dark part and give it a shade, you can use 1 or 2 or even 3 color to paint it. But remember, less is more. Begin with the big part, and then separate it into the little one.

4. Painting:

 

Start to [Merge} all the hair layers together and then paint over it. Using the [Alt] key on the keyboard (Shortcut of the Eyedropper Tool] to pick the color. Continue with the rule above: start with the big part, and then paint the little one.

 

Be patient. Paint it little by little.

Drawing hair need a lot of patience,

When you find out the interesting of drawing every single hair locks, you will love doing it.

5. Overlay

 

Create a new layer and choose [Clip to the Layer below] and [Overlay] mode to draw some color to your hair. But I have to repeat it again. Less is more. Don't use too much color or use the color too bright, it makes your hair looks unreal, look like a wig. (Except you are drawing a wig LOL).

In this step, I also use this [Soft Airbrush] to make the color blend together softly.

When you've done with this, continue to [Merge] it to the layer below and start to paint over again.

Use the small brush size to paint some hairpiece. Little hairpiece make it looks softer and more nature. But if you draw too many of them, it will become tangled. Be careful with them.

5. Details and Shine.

 

Using this color of hair make me feel like drawing an universe so I decide to add some glitter and some constellation. Create a new layer, and [Clip to the layer below] again, choose the [Glow] mode and draw. At this step, I use an airbrush to draw the glitter.

In this step, I used the [Spray Airbrush] for drawing the glitter. All the brush I have used in this tutorial is the basic and original tool of Clip Studio Paint. Ok we've done. So here is the result !

F. Quick TIPS: Choosing color wisely.

For me, I always choose the color in the green square. It is the "safe area" for me, not too vivid, and not too monotonic. Like I said before, if we use too much vivid color, the hair will look unreal, it looks like a wig. But if we just use one single color, it will be too boring.

 

My way in choosing color is never use one color, I use 2 or 3 color which is placed near by in the color wheel, and in one color, I will pick different saturations in a Z line, like this:

G. Extra Part:

As I promised above, here is the "meaning" of some hairstyle. Let's take a look !

1. Natural long, straight and dark color hair.

 

Introverted. Simple. Soft.

2. Short, curly bob hair with bright color:

 

Girly. Modern. Nostalgia.

3. Short hair.

 

Extroverted. Imaginative. Confident

4. Double Pig-tails

 

Childish. Cheerful. Out going and Adorable.

5. Long, curly and dyed hair.

 

Mature. Sexy. Rational.

6. Midium short hair, dyed color.

 

Modern. Creative. Optimistic.

7. Short hair with vivid color.

 

THIS IS A VERY COOL PERSON !!!

8. Lightly curvy, blonde hair:

 

Gentle. Polite. Looks like a princess.

9. Hime-cut

 

Traditional. Serious. Dependable.

10. Top-not, red hair.

 

Special. Brave. Modern. Competitive

This is my own feeling and opinion, not 100% correct. But I hope it will let you have a closer look about the affection of the hairstyle to character design.

H. Thank you <3

Whoa, congratulations, you have reach the rest of my tutorial about hairstyle in character design. I hope I have expression my opinion clearly and easy to understand. This is the first time I've done a tutorial in English. Thank you so much for reading 'til this part.

 

Hope my tips work for you ! And if it does, please give me a heart !!! Thank youuuu <3