How To Draw Curly Hair For Beginners
When drawing hair the most common mistake is to forget that when you see someone, you donât notice every single hair on their head.
Individual hairs form together to create sections or hair strands.
So, when weâre drawing, we have to focus first on the volume of the hair, on finding those sections and shapes and not on individual hairs.
There are different ways of drawing curly hair, here are the three I use the most:
Draw The Hair Strands
Okay, this is great, but we want to add more details to the hair. And the best way to do that is to add a few individual strands.
Now, to draw the hair strands, were going to pick a color on the color palette by choosing a color thats darker and more saturated. Whenever I say saturated, I mean brighter which means moving to the right on the color palette.
See the diagram below for more information.
When choosing a color for the hair strands, were moving down on the color palette and a little bit to the right to pick a color that stands out in the hair.
Create a new layer over the purple color hair layer and click on it to select clipping mask. So now, when we draw the hair strands, we can only draw over the layer that is underneath. You dont have to worry about coloring outside the area.
Following the direction of the outline, we draw the hair strands with the same ink brush.
Were now going to add some highlighted strands to give the hair more color and texture. Choose a color thats lighter than the base color. Im going to decrease the width of the brush so that the highlighted hair strands are really fine before drawing a few strands.
How To Draw Short Hair
How to draw Short Hair: From
3. Now take your B or 2B pencil, and shade in the dark areas of the hair that you can see yourself.
4. Continue by working one hair area at a TIME. Blend in the strands, creating strokes in the same direction the hair grows.
5. Also, leave it until the next day and come back then for the final touches. Time away from your artwork will allow you see it with a new eyes.
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What Will You Need For This Tutorial
You just need a few things.
- iPad Pro
However, all these tips and tricks for drawing curly hair carry over to every drawing medium.
So, whether you use your pencil, photoshop, or procreate, feel free to follow along.
Aside from that, youll need a reference image.
You can find photos to inspire you on stock photo websites, such as Pexels, Unsplash, Pixabay, etc.
Ive put together a group of reference photos for you, so you dont have to waste any time and can get right into learning how to draw curly hair!
If youre using Procreate like me, I recommend you using brushes made to draw hair, since this will make the whole process so much faster and easier.
Ill be using my 25 hair brushes for every hairstyle, but feel free to use any brush set you want.
If you want to try out the brushes Ill be using, heres a free sample.
Lets start drawing curly hair!
How To Color Hair In Procreate
Ive been enjoying learning more about digital coloring lately, which has led me to 2 apps in particular Pigment and Procreate. Pigment has been great for a quick and easy coloring app , and Procreate offers some incredibly advanced coloring and drawing tools. Procreate definitely takes a bit more learning, but its well worth it. So Ive invited Kim from creativehappy.life to show us how she uses Procreate, and to teach us how to color hair because its not as hard as it seems, and it can look amazing when done right!
You can see her beautiful coloring below, and grab the free hair color swatch PDF shes provided for us .
Kim has also prepared an amazingly helpful resource for us! You can download this printable PDF of hair color combinations to help with your digital coloring, or to help with your other coloring! Shes also created the Procreate swatch files you can use with this tutorial.
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How To Draw Layered Hair
This is usually my favorite hairstyle to draw and to have. When drawing this style, V shapes are created when drawing animal fur, feathers, and flower petal.
It is important to constantly create the highlighted tones of the hair, contrasting with darker shades. It will allow to create the realistic depth.
When drawing hair, bands of light are the most crucial elements to creating a realistic finish.
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Eclectica: Stipple Brushes For Procreate
You’ll instantly fall in love with the look of this Procreate brush pack. It was designed to create a stippling effect that blends multiple retro styles. This bundle includes strokes and stipples for a total of 18 brushes. Eclectica is one of the more unique downloads of Procreate texture brushes. Try it for your next Procreate digital drawing.
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How To Draw People In Procreate
If you think you cant draw people, think again. With character guide stamp brushes, face and hair stamp brushes, and this tutorial, you will definitely be able to draw people in Procreate. We will go through the steps of creating a drawing guide, sketching the person, actually drawing the person, and adding color to your drawing.
If you would like to follow along, we will be using character pose stamp brushes for the body, stamp brushes for the face and hair, and Procreate skin tone color palettes. Take a look at our tutorial on how to import Procreate brushes if needed.
How To Draw Hair Fast And Easy For Beginners: Step By Step
Drawing hair is not only about the texture as many of you would think. You can make your hair drawing look 10x better if you know how to make the base. The composition is essential for your final result. If you are a beginner then focus on that first to learn how to draw hair easy and fast.
In this tutorial I used the Sketchy Brush Set.
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Make Every Day A Good Hair Drawing Day
To master the art of drawing hair, just keep practicing. Experiment with different hairstyles and cuts, and always give yourself time to observe hair in the real world. Play with your own hair, if you can, to get a feel for it. If you dont have hair, get a doll, Jemison says.
Try drawing in Adobe Fresco. With endless brushes and infinite canvases, you can practice every type of hair-drawing style. Learn how to draw braided hair, and explore tutorials on drawing with digital watercolors or painting with realistic-looking oils. Pay attention to the details, and then just draw. Let your hair down, and be open to what you discover.
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Dont Worry You Can Always Clean It Up
How to draw body hair procreate. Tap the screen with 4 fingers. Practice front view three-quarter view and side view. Its a step by step tutorial in which.
This is a good primer on digital coloring in general but the specific focus on hair will really appeal to illustrators of all types. Keep the direction of the hair in mind. Color directly from the illustration so I know Im using colors inspired by what Ive already drawn.
With a lot of longer hairstyles I find that the hair puffs out most around here and then tends to taper inward. Tap the fur and Fluff brush set file and it will be automatically imported into Procreate. Draw a line and hold your pencil down on the screen until a perfectly straight and smooth line is created.
Then the other hard thing to draw is the outline of the Joe and the phase itself as this is the woman were drawing the face has to be very smooth not something very like rectangle that will be more feeding For a man. Create a New Layer. This is one way you could approach drawing curly hair but the options are endless so experiment with new techniques as you draw.
The other thing youll want to do is download the three Procreate files that contain the animal sketches. I find variety in hairstyles as the most fun part when designing characters. For coily hair I like to use a thicker brush and I draw tight spirals.
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Six: Smudge The Colors Together
Tap the smudge icon , then Touchups, and select the Short Hair brush.
Set your brush size to around 30% and drag from the top to the bottom of your hair strand to smudge the colors together and create a subtle gradient.
It doesnt need to be a smooth blend, it actually works better if some of the texture remains intact.
Eleven: Repeat For The Rest Of The Hair Strands
To complete the full head of hair, go through steps 4 through to 10. Remember to work in sections where the directional flow of the hair strands seem to follow the same direction, and be sure to watch my timelapse in the video to see how I tackle it.
I really hope this helps, but if you have any questions just pop them in the video comments section so I can try and help.
Heres the final hair!
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Use Previous Hair Drawing Methods And Draw On Top Of Head
Using varying types of coil motions with your brush you will follow the flow of the hair you set in the first step to fill in the coils. Keep them larger and denser to the scalp, flowing looser towards the ends. You can use a fair few types of coils, but always keep in mind your hairline and the direction of the hair
Cool Things To Draw On Procreate
Procreate is my favorite digital drawing app available for the iPad.
In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to create a colorful neon portrait of a beautiful woman in Procreate using different painting techniques. We’ll take some inspiration from the retro and glamour styles, and we’ll use vibrant neon colors to make it stylish.
Watch me work over on the Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel, where you can follow along with this process.
Making your neon portrait and other Procreate digital drawings is a lot easier with the right tools. If you want to add different styles and dimensions to your artwork, download premium Procreate brush sets from Envato Elements. Beauty Brushes is a top option for you, and I included a few more choices for you at the end of this portrait Procreate tutorial.
Are you all set? Then let’s start this portrait tutorial for Procreate!
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Five: Apply The Rest Of The Colors To Your Hair Strand
On the same layer, choose the next color which is slightly lighter than the base color and use the Hard airbrush to apply this color whilst following the directional flow of the hair. Youll want this color to cover about 3/4 of the base color you applied in the previous step.
Repeat this process for all the other colors provided in the palettes provided, working from the darkest to the lightest color.
Nine: Add Some Extra Oomph To Your Highlights
Add a new layer above the layer you just worked on, but still beneath the line art. Set this layer as a clipping mask by tapping the layer, and selecting Clipping Mask. Also, change the layer blend mode to Add.
Using the Soft Brush and lightest color from the palette provided, emphasize where the light would hit the midsection of the hair strand. You can lower the opacity on this layer if you want to change the intensity of this additional shine youve added to the hair.
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Procreate Drawing Ideas For Beginners
You will find here pieces of information on how to prepare mentally for drawing. Youtube15Looking for a drawing software for your iPad.
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Three: Set Your Line Art As A Reference Layer And Change The Blend Mode
Tap on the layers panel and find the layer with your imported coloring page. Tap this layer to bring up your layer options, and then tap Reference to set your line art as a reference layer.
This will make it easier to do things such as color drop into the boundaries of the line art, whilst working on separate layers to the original line art layer.
If youre working with a coloring page that has a white background like my example has, on that same line art layer youll need to tap the N to bring up the blend mode options and change it to Multiply. This means that any color you apply to layers beneath your line art will show up. Skip this step if youre working with a transparent PNG image.
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Erase Inner Lines Within Curls
For this curl, there will be no shine on the inner edges, and when we create the shading you will want to keep the area where it folds in mind, so outline that as the space between your two crescent moons and keep that your darkest spot.
In addition to that keep in mind that you have hair overlapping so where they overlap you will want to make the shading darker.
Draw Simple Strokes Of Straight Hair
Okay, next, Im going to begin by drawing her hair over her scalp, and Im going to pull it into a ponytail.
When youre drawing the hair, make sure youre using a new layer so that it becomes super easy to erase the mistakes.
You want the strokes to be in the direction of the hair growth. Im going to draw it in pink so you can see it clearly. Notice the green arrows. So, if she were pulling her hair into a ponytail, that would be the direction of her hair strands.
Now that her hair is pulled up, were going to draw the ponytail.
Remember, straight hair is very fluid and actually adheres to gravity , so move your hand in long-flowy strokes. Dont feel disheartened if it doesnt come naturally to you at first. It takes practice.
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Pull Out Some Highlights
Start to separate the hairs by pulling out some highlights with a kneaded eraser. Do not take too many highlights out at this point. This is just the first step, and you will continue to repeat the steps above to continue to add depth to the hair.
Drawing tip:
The highlights arent strands of hair, they are the hairs that the light is hitting so there will be times when the highlighted area is larger than other times. It all depends on how the light is hitting the area.
The kneaded eraser is a great tool to remove graphite from a drawing surface, however, there will be times when you want a thinner line erased. In those situations, a Tombow Mono Zero Refillable Eraser will work better.
Tips For Drawing Hair
- Understand the flow of the hair and start from there
- Create the overall shape of you want the hair to look in the end
- Choose the light source before you start drawing the hair, it will help you get better shadows for it
- Use the pencil strokes to replicate the hairs direction and length
- The color of the hair is done by how dark or how light your pencil lines are
In conclusion, dont forget that reaching the level you want in your hair drawings requires time. Make a constant effort and practice when you can because this will build up your skill. Learning how to draw hair should be something that you enjoy and with all these tutorials available for sure you can choose something that works for you.
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Ten: Group Your Layers
This step isnt really part of the technique, but more for helping to keep your layers panel less crazy!
On the layers panel, select the layers youve been working on by swiping right. Youll know theyve been selected when they turn blue.
Then tap Group so that these all get added into a new section labeled New group.
Tap the New Group layer to bring up the group options, and then select Flatten. This will merge all of the layers youve worked on into one single layer, which will keep things tidier as you work through the process above for the rest of the hair.
Once flattened, its hard to work with these layers and edit them as all the effects and colors have been merged together, so please dont group and flatten your layers until youre happy with how things look.