How to Draw Realistic Hair: 14 Steps with Pictures
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As I continue drawing I look for "ribbons" of hair to indicate, usually with a highlight and halftone. Throughout this drawing I will be looking for shapes, beginning withgeneral ones and moving towards more and more specific ones. I discuss how to use shape to create a likeness of your subject and present a shape exercise in Lesson 2 of my free Mini-Course. Drawing the shapes specific to your subject creates a likeness.This is true no matter what you draw, whether it is a still life, portrait or figure. Thelightest value can be left as the white of the paper, and the darkestvalue is just to the right of the face (our right, the model's left). To get the most out of this lesson, take my free Mini-Course on the essential concepts of realistic drawing.
How to Draw Hair – Learn How to Create an Easy Hair Drawing
If we only had the silhouette, we wouldn’t notice all these details, thus I need to contrast the different sections in order to highlight these shapes. Work on one part of the hair at a time, while following the general direction in which the strands flow. In dark areas, don’t be afraid to press hard (I used a 6B to 8B for these areas). To bring out highlights, flatten your kneaded eraser and swipe it in the desired direction. The eraser will become too dirty after the first swipe, so fold it in and flatten after each stroke. But a change in your approach can help you leave those fears behind.
Step 8 – Finish the Curly Hair Drawing
Add in the smallest sets of hair splits, folds and clumps to finish the line drawing. Erase the hairline and parts of the head covered by the hair once done. Finish the drawing by further darkening and smoothing out the overall shading.
Step 11
Shade the haircut in a more definite way, drawing shadows between groups of curls. Draw the direction of the hair, creating the 3D form of the haircut. Shade the hair now, thinking in terms of strands, not single hairs. Outline the whole hair, following the rhythm of strands.
Step Two: Create the shape of the hair

For most people with long hair, you can expect at least 2 centimeters of “hair height” on top of their actual height and at least 2 centimeters on the sides as well. Learning how to draw realistic hair is about realizing what hair actually is. Hair is a series of fine lines that move in a particular direction. However, that motion can change which is what we see in curly hair.
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It's totally understandable if you're feeling intimidated, but we've got you covered! We'll help you break the process down into manageable steps and add details one layer at a time to achieve realistic-looking hair in your drawings. Read on for a detailed guide on outlining, sketching, shading, highlighting, and more. This essential practice presents the ultimate challenge to the artist and once mastered, opens up a world of possibilities.

We'll still see contrast between darks and lights, but this will happen from layering instead of within each "clump" of hair. It clearly doesn't make sense to draw every strand of hair. Not only would this take an incredible amount of time to accomplish, but it also would lead to very unnatural looking hair. We'll define the volume of these forms in the next step, but for now we'll concentrate on defining the shapes.
Afterward, it is time to fill in the hair with more texture, so add long and short lines throughout the hairstyle. Continue to fill in the hair with texture, adding more lines to the hairstyle to indicate volume. Let'sface it, the form of the head is basically an upside down egg. Nomatter what the model's hairstyle, there is usually an area of hair thatlies flat on the head and reveals the form. It is this area that is particularly important to pay attention to,otherwise the hair won't look believable, or the skull may lookstrangely shaped. Let us shift our focus to the hair on the top of the head as we transition to the right side of the hair.
Same as the other example begin by drawing an outline of the entire shape of the head. Again add in the hairline over top of the head drawing. Refine the shading by creating smoother gradients between the mid tone, light and “in shadow” areas of the hair. The main goal of this step is to apply an initial layer of shading that will define the light, medium and dark areas of the hair. To avoid your drawing getting overly clutter erase the parts of the head covered by the hair after you are done.
I’ve always thought that short, almost shaved hair feels like a carpet! And when I draw it, I like to give it a prickly, pointy, rough appearance. • The green area (1) indicates the gap between the head and the edge of the hair. Each hair comes from a specific point and grows in a different direction. Even when the hair is very long, the gravitational force eventually brings it down.
It's easy to see all of the details and textures within hair and assume that it must be difficult to capture it all in a drawing. But it doesn't have to be overwhelming and we can simplify the process, making drawing hair a bit more manageable. Divide this hairstyle into several curly locks of hair by drawing the same bouncy line as before as many times as needed.
As is the case with any subject that you draw, practice is important. The more that we practice with a particular subject, the better we understand it. Drawing a whole head of hair will give you lots of practice. However for some, the thought of doing this may be intimidating. Instead, it may be better to tackle a portion of the hair first.
Because the wavy hair of females can be heavy the top might seem slightly less bumpy. However, as the hair comes to the ends and tips they begin to move in various directions twisting in and around each other. The goal here is to get the outline of the shape correct and then slowly begin to add your lines and shades in the overlapping moments. The examples in this tutorial can give you a good basic idea of how to draw some common hair types. If you want to try drawing another hairstyle you can still apply the same steps/principals used in these tutorial.
You should eventually have a line drawing with a good amount of details similar to the example above. If you are going to be follows this tutorial it’s best to do so using pencil and paper. Before you make people happy with your drawing, you have to make yourself happy with your final work and the process. Just draw the overall shape, and it will be your guide when you do the line art immediately or even paint it over, or you can detail it into a sketch first. So again, we'll first define the outer contour of the shape of the hair. And again, we can simplify this further into smaller shapes that describe the clumps.
These lines can vary in length, from long to short, just so long as they follow the hairstyle. For our hair drawing reference, we will be using an image of a female as her hair provides us with a unique challenge. The curls and brunette coloring of her hair have various tonal values that sit on the tonal spectrum between dark and light. With all our materials ready we can now begin our hair drawing process. Slowly darken the drawing by applying more layers of overlapping strokes. Be sure to leave some space between them to create an effect of individual hairs.
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