Draw Realistic Hair: A Step-by-Step Guide

Draw Realistic Hair: A Step-by-Step Guide

Drawing hair is a highly interesting and very rewarding task for any artist. From a sleek bob to wild curls, or even long flowing locks, discovering how to draw hair can make a huge difference in your portraits and character illustrations. Let's get started step by step to learn how to capture the subtlety of light, texture, and movement.

Step 1: Gather Materials
Prepare your necessary tools. There are essential pencils for drawing, drawing paper, eraser, and blending stump or tissue for smoothening transitions. If you are going to color, then put depth to your hair with colored pencils or markers.

Step 2: Understand the Fundamental Concept of Hair Structure
Locks are made of individual hairs which clump together and fall in all directions. To describe this, study the general direction and curvature of the hairstyle that you want to draw. Note how hair grows from your head and how it falls down due to gravity.

Step 3: Light Sketch
Sketch light the head and show the shape of the hairstyle. Use simple shapes to outline the various sections of hair. Don't attempt to detail at this stage; get the proportions and flow right as much as you can. Just sketch with light strokes so you may erase and correct as needed.

Step 4: Shape the Hair Flow
Once you are satisfied with the basic shape, begin to define the movement of the hair strands by using curved lines in the direction that hair naturally moves. Hair has mass, therefore it has volume as well, so give your lines some curvature to achieve this. Do not draw every single strand; focus instead on larger units and how they interact with one another.

Step 5: Add Details and Texture
Now, describe some. For straight hair, draw your strands in fine, straight lines following the growth of the strands. For curly or wavy hair, use loops and swirls to give texture. REMEMBER THE SHADINGS IN LIGHT AND DARK FOR THE DEPTHS IN YOUR DRAWING. Areas that require most shading are your dark areas.

Step 6: Shade and Blend
Shade the hair using a range of pencils, gradually moving into darker shades. Attempt to blend pencil strokes out with the stump or tissue for a smooth, dioramic finish. Be mindful where light will hit the hair, and some areas should remain lighter to show the highlights.

Step 7: Finishing Touches
Complete your drawing by including the final details that would give it a more realistic appearance. These may include the detailing of the highlights or deeper shadow along with adding small stray hairs.
Take a step back and evaluate your work to make any necessary corrections.

Conclusion
Hair drawing: that requires attention and practice, it is true. But it's worth the effort that comes together to stand for perfect work when done with patience and techniques such as these. Study different hairstyles. A different hairstyle will have features peculiar to them. You can't go wrong when you are experimenting with different styles. The more you sketch, the better you become at using your artistic skills. Sketch on!

Draw Realistic Hair: A Step-by-Step Guide