Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hey everyone and welcome to my first class on drying basic hairstyles for female enemy and manga characters. I'm a self-taught artist and occasional freelancer and drawing, it's my passion and love to draw characters from video games, animate, and occasionally my own imagination. In this class, I hope to share with you tips and tricks that I've picked up on drawing one of my favorite things, hairstyles. This is a class geared towards beginner and intermediate artists, both digital and traditional. We'll be going over proportions, planning, creating hair shapes from basic shapes and putting it all together to create hairstyles. We will not be learning about how to draw faces. Digital software or how to color digitally. The scope of this first class is quite small, so we're only going to be covering the basics. I hope you'll find this class to be fun and useful. Let's get started.
2. Materials: There aren't any specific materials required for this class. You can use a computer, an iPad, or just a pencil and paper. We won't be doing any coloring in the class. So anything to draw with will work. For this class. I'm using a PC, pen, tablet, and paint tool side too, which is a lightweight digital drawing software. I'm not using any special brushes for this class. Just a defaults. When you're ready, let's get started.
3. Things to Avoid: Let's talk about things to avoid when drawing hair for our characters. The first is drawing individual strands. Even though hair itself is made up of individual strands, using a brush to layer on strands may look a little bit strange. It may work for some styles, but often looks like there's something missing, especially if there are a lot of uneven gaps in between the strand. It gives off the illusion of detail, but doesn't really represent the fullness of the hair or the structure behind it. The next thing to avoid is having very jagged clumps of hair. This usually consists of drawing very sharp triangle shapes where you think or expect hair to be when there isn't necessarily going to be. This often comes from trying to get the entire shape of the hair in one go. Pretty much the opposite of drawing individual strands. The common sense that hair tapers plus a lack of structure results in these jagged edges. This is also something that may work for some styles, but often just looks like something is a little bit off when we realize what to avoid than we can understand how to improve on what we already know.
4. Proportions and Block In: Getting the proportions right. First, let's find the hairline. This is where the root of the hair will start. Remember, hair doesn't come from the top of your head, but from your hairline, we can find the characters hairline by eyeballing it or measuring it. To measure it, take the distance between the eyebrows and the nose and flip it. This will give us a good location for our hairline. We won't go any further into facial proportions in this class. But this is a pretty simple rule of thumb. As you draw more and more, it becomes easier to just eyeball it without having to measure. What I like to do next is mark the location of the hairline with another color so that we always know where it is. Next, let's mark out the top of the head. The most important part of this is understanding that the hair does not claim to the scalp, but has volume and therefore will actually appear to be higher than the scalp. We're going to measure this similarly to how we measured the hairline. From the hairline measure to the top of the skull. We will take the same distance and flip it. This will give us a rough distance on where the top of the head would be. Don't worry if it looks a little bit too high and it may characters are known for having big hair. Next, we are going to separate the hair into three parts, the bank side and back. For this demo, I'll be using solid shapes for emphasis. The back is the majority of the shape of the hair, which we will add first, I'll use a different colored brush to sketch it in. I won't get into details at all at this stage. Let's say the character is going to have acute bob haircut. We will use the top of the head and hairline guidelines that we created before and use that to guide us. You can make the shape anything you like, but don't put any individual strands just yet. So once I've completed the bat, I'll create a new layer to be the other sections. Next are the side pieces. These are pieces of hair that are in front of the ears and in front of the back. Behind the backs. They come out in the hairline and frame the face. Think of them similar to sideburns. Not every character we'll have this. It really depends on their haircut. Yes. Lastly, we'll add the banks, also known as a fringe. Bangs are always the top layer. The sides and the back are always behind it. The banks come out of the hairline and cover only the front part of the head. This is another component that not all animate characters have, but some do. This is often used for cute or young characters who really pushed their cuteness. After the block in his complete, it becomes easy to understand the overall shape of the hair. When we add lines to our drawing, having underneath structure will help us draw something believable. Here's what it looks like when we quickly outline are blocking. Thanks. It's safe.
5. Basic Shapes I: Let's look at how we can turn shapes into something that resembles hair. Will start with three basic ones. The leaf, the triangle, and the rectangle. Fair sled sketch out the basic shape. Consider these like building blocks to create strands, clumps and other forms that can help you tackle hair. We're going to go from large to small. I'm just doing this free handedly without using a ruler. Right? It's next to make him more hair-like. Let's draw some small triangles to break up the shape. A comeback and with an eraser later to clean up the extra lines. I can make these triangles as messy as I want because I know that I'll be cleaning them up afterwards. Yes. And then I'll add some lines to represent the direction of the hair flow. For the most part, these lines would just be vertical and placed randomly. I try not to think about what I'm doing too much, but just let my hand do all the work. Lastly, I'll add some Alex and triangles to add to the silhouette of my shapes. Since hair can be quite messy, bits and pieces sticking out is a great way to show volume. Again, this very loosely and without a reference just trying to get something that looks passable. I get carried away when adding these details. So I try to limit myself. Yes. Yes. So yes. So let's say this is size. This is what shapes such as rectangles, they can be made even more interesting by twisting the shaped like a piece of paper or ribbon and then adding detail to it. Same concept can be applied to any shape and the steps can be done in any order. Yes.
6. Basic Shapes II: The next basic shape that we'll take a look at is the crescent moon. Crescent moons and other similar shapes are used to represent locks of hair that stick together similar to leaf shape we looked at before. Present men shapes can be long, lop-sided, curly, or chubby, but they are naturally reminiscent of locks of hair, especially on animate characters. There are endless ways of creating these crescent moon-shaped. Adding a single curly crescent moon on the top of a character's head is often used as a sign of cuteness or Innocence. It's combining different crescent moon shapes together and erasing the excess lines gives us even more variations. Sprout like split ends, curls, and other shapes can be created this way. It's nice to practice this by just filling a page full of 0s shapes and combining them. Adding shapes like bees when drawing makes her hairstyle look much more detailed with little effort. Here, I'll make a curl by layering a few crescent moons. Layering smaller shapes to create an overall curl is easier than trying to draw the whole curl in one go. I'll continue to make these shapes from imagination. I'll add detail lines to show the flow of the hair as we did in the previous video. For these small pieces, I will not add too many. Once they're done, they should resemble locks of hair. Okay.
7. Using References and Thumbnails: Finding references and making some males, it's really hard to come up with original ideas and original hairstyles on the fly. Sometimes a brand new character and a blank canvas cell, like a recipe for our block and frustration. Luckily, the internet exists and we can use it whenever we want. Here is a simple exercise to do. Let's say we wanted to draw hair with banks, but aren't really sure what we want. We can hop onto Google Images and search for hairstyle with things. You'll immediately see a million images of what you're looking for. Borrow a few to use as reference and make very loose sketches of the ones you like. Here I'll be making thumbnail sketches. These are very small sketches with very little detail back and tried to capture a small snapshot of the things I'd like on the internet. Kinda like taking notes in university but much less stressful. Fill a page with the ideas you like. An eventually you'll have enough to work with just from your own ideas. Work on each for just a couple of minutes and move on to the next. If you find one you really like, you can always flush it out more later. We should always be looking for reference images to build our reference library. The more we remember, the easier it is to draw from imagination. I loved to use wigs as my inspiration for manga hairstyles, as they're colorful and shaped to really nicely. For these sketches, I'm not looking for detail at all. I'm just looking at the overall shape and trying to take the outlines. I find that wigs for cosplay our happy medium between cartoony and realistic. Obviously realistic as they are real wakes, but they're based off of enemy characters and the shape wouldn't be something you would see out on the street most of the time. I chose this rainbow wig because of its shape. Since it's so clumpy and thick, you can immediately see the shapes that form around it. Since there's so much going on, it's much easier to take the outline rather than the individual strands that you can see. This next one is on the realistic side. But the interesting part about this is that the banks are split up and see-through. So for this, I'll create some small lines. The back is very simple and simply tapers and flips off to the side. This next one looks complex, but it's actually quite easy one to break it down. First we'll do the banks and then we'll add that piece of hair on the side. I started with these two shapes because they were the most obvious to me. And then I add in the back. And this hairstyle is quite intricate and quite detailed. They don't wanna get caught in the details. So I'll simplify it a little bit. I picked this last one because the banks actually split off to the side and you can see a very, very small gap. I find that this gives a little bit of contrast to the other flat bang to images that we've been looking at. As artists, we can alter reference images to our liking. We can mix and match and swap are pieces that we like. If you have a favorite character but don't like their lugs, you can simply draw them differently. This is as far as I'll take my thumbnail sketches. I don't want to add any more detail than this because I'm not married to my sketches. The goal here is to draw a large quantity of sketches, not necessarily finished pieces with all the details. So in seven minutes, we've created six different hairstyles based off of reference. You can also do the same exercise from imagination. But when you're starting out using reference is the way to go.
8. Demo 1 - Long Hair: For this first demo, I start off by marking off the hairline and the top of the head as thinking that this character could have a long hairstyle, the draped over one of her shoulders. So I started to lay in the sketch with the colored brush. I use a big blue brush on a separate layer to lay in messy lines as to where I want the back of the hair to be. Once the back is done, I'll do the sides and the bangs in the same way, using different colors for emphasis. Once I'm happy with the overall shape, I'll add just a few small details to help guide my pen in the later stages. A lower the opacity of my sketch. And I'll use a much smaller pen in solid black to the outline. I'd like to start with the banks just because they're in front of the face, but it doesn't really matter where you start. I'll use a technique of tracing the shape while adding little strands and other shapes around it to make it seem more organic. I'll go around the rest of the piece in a similar fashion, where I'll basically outline the sketch that I had made with a structure underneath. Well, adding some bits and pieces to make it look more organic. When I'm satisfied with the overall shape, I'll take the same brash without changing the size. And I'll go and add some lines to show the flow of the hair. I'll erase parts of the face that would otherwise be covered by the hair. But consider removing the ears, but that just looks beer to stop with him back. I'll fill in these eraser gaps as I go. I outlined the back of the hair using multiple strokes. Sometimes you just can't get it in one go. It might take you a few, but try to overlap them in a way that makes it look like it was a single stroke. And I'll do the other side the same way, taking multiple strokes to get the effect that I want. I do the hair in the same way, going around the shoulder, tracing around my sketch and later erasing the shoulder behind it. Now that all the shapes are in place, I'm going to go and add more and more details everywhere that I feel like I should have some flow out, add a few lines point. I feel like I no longer need the sketch to guide me. I'll remove this sketch layer, but I'll keep working on the small details. Add a few extra hairs on the side just because I wanted to give the hair a little bit more of a messy look, a few more lines. And this hairstyle is done.
9. Demo 2 - Short Hair: For our second demo, let's draw character with short, wavy hair. I'll start by marking out the hairline and the top of the head. Next, I'll take a different color and go around the shape. I'm not really thinking too much about the shape, just making little waves. So with this character, I'm actually going to skip the side bits and go straight to the banks. Just to show that not all characters need to have all three pieces. A layer down leaf shapes over the front of her forehead. Don't worry if belief shapes look messy or unkempt. Those overlaps will all be fixed later when we do the line work, I'll drop the opacity of the layer and get out of much smaller brush to outline. I'll start outlining from the banks outwards. Some places will have overlaps, which I'll erase as I go. I use a combination of crescent moon shapes to represent strands. As I finished the banks or start working my way outwards towards the back. As the pieces of hair are much shorter than the last character. I tried to use faster strokes. When working on the back. I try to keep the lines very loose. I'll follow my original outlines, but also add a few strands here or there. And once you have a basic outline, I'll rebuild this sketch and start detailing. I'll be adding crescent men shapes to just give the hair a little bit more volume. I'll go over the whole thing once more with my eraser and pick up any places that I didn't erase. I'll continue to add details free handedly, darkening places where I think it's needed. I'll add a little hair loop on the top of her head using a crescent shape just to show that she's a queue character. I think that up and this hairstyle is complete.
10. Demo 3 - Profile View: For this third and last demo, I wanted to show how the same principles that we've been learning can apply two heads in different angles. Here's a head and profile view. A mark out the hair line and the top of the head and begin blocking in the back. Because we're seeing the character from the profile view. The back is much more prominent and the hair will appear thicker than if we were to see it from the front. A block in the side parts with a different color. Remember there in front of the back and behind the banks. When drawing bangs, note that since we're in a profile view, we won't be seeing as much of the hair. We're seeing it from the side. And you'll notice that it tends to curve around the shape of the forehead. I won't put too many banks here just enough to show that there are some. I'll then lower the opacity of my sketch layer and take a small pen and go around. Similar to the other demos. I like to start from the middle and start outlining my sketch. I'm going around the major shapes before add any detailing. It's just a personal preference is start from the middle first and work your way out. But it really doesn't matter what order you do this. For banks like this, I often try to make my Strokes a little bit faster than normal, including taking the entire bang and the taper in one stroke. Like before, I'll erase the extra lines on the characters. I had a few more lines to show the flow of the hair and this will be done. One thing to note when drawing characters from this angle is at their heads are actually very round. So make sure that they have enough room for their skull. The character and profile view is now complete.
11. Outtro/Class Project: Thank you for joining my class. I hope it's been fun and insightful and I hope you are ready to draw. Our class project for this class is to draw three different hairstyles for a female character. Creating original characters face and give them three different hairstyles. Tried to keep them slightly different from one another, but in the same overall style. If you get stacked, search the internet for reference images. These can be from real-life photographs inspired by your favorite anime characters or even a selfie of your best friends. I look forward to seeing it.
Pigliicorn, Drawing is Fun!
