How to Draw Hair

How to Draw Hair

Although it's not the most challenging part of a portrait, drawing hair can be tricky and end up looking too flat if not drawn properly. In this tutorial, I’ll demonstrate through a photo study to show how breaking hair into three-dimensional forms, understanding light and shadow, and adding texture step by step can make the rendering process much easier.

In this article, I will demonstrate how to render hair through a photo study. Photo studies are a great way to learn how to draw something new——see the reference I’ll be using below!

The approach to drawing hair begins with the head shape. Think of the hair as a three-dimensional form, just like the face or the body. More specifically, start by sectioning the hair into simple shapes and then, finding the volume of each section.

Hair always has a starting point from where all the strands flow from, as I have depicted in the image below. This helps guide us to see where the hair should start and end.

After identifying your starting point,  break down the structure of the hair into pieces. Here, I’ve marked the front section in green, the middle section in blue, and the back section in pink. By identifying these sections early on, the shading process will be much easier. 

When you break the structures into 3D shapes, you’ll see that hair flow always follows a specific direction. Light hits it in similar ways, and the texture of the hair decides how it's going to look. With that in mind, it’s time to add light and shadow!

First, we need to think about the shape and volume of the head. After sketching out the hair and filling in base colors, think of how groups of hair wrap around the head in sections. Begin by adding  the larger shadows, then  transition to adding saturated reflected light and highlights. You can refer to the videos for lighting 1 and lighting 2 to learn more about lighting!

When shading, it's essential to include highlights, midtones, shadows, bounce light and reflected light. These different values work together to help define the shape and volume of the hair, showing how it interacts with the light source and environment. Without them, the hair looks flat. If you struggle with light and shadow, start small: practice rendering a sphere!

After adding my basic shadows, I create sections to block out color. I like to approach shadows as flat, graphic shapes, as it’s important to get a well balanced separation of light and dark values before rendering.  For the bounce light, I picked a nearby desaturated color that relates to the background. This causes the hair to appear as if it is reflecting the colors around it. For example, if the background is blue, I would choose the blue from the environment that would naturally bounce onto the dark parts of the hair, making the hair feel more connected to the environment. In my photo study, the original solid color is very warm and saturated, so I picked a cool desaturated color for the reflected light for contrast. The areas that will have the most visible texture are the halftones and midtones. These areas get a little bit of light from the highlight side and some darks from the shadow side creating the most contrast and detail.

Next, I add highlights. When adding lighting, I usually pick a desaturated lighter version of the midtone, and  add it to where the light source hits. For this study, my midtone is a warm reddish-brown, so I use a lighter, softer peachy-brown for the highlights.. In this step, the strands should be thinner depending upon how much light is hitting the hair. This is due to the fact that softer lighting reveals larger portions of the hair, whereas stronger light produces smaller, brighter areas of reflection on individual strands. Maintaining tiny, targeted highlights makes the hair appear glossy and keeps the lighting from making the entire lock appear flat.

Now, it’s time to render the locks of hair! Before rendering, it's useful to form gradients of the shadows, highlights, and midtones with the airbrush or smudge tool. This elevates your piece by creating variety in color while maintaining similar value structure.

Everyone’s hair has a different shape and texture. Start by looking at the larger groups of hair and identify how each one curves, bends, or wraps around the head.

I look for ways to connect separate shadow shapes to create bigger, more connected areas of shadow. Using the color picker (eyedropper) tool, I select the color of the shadows and form broad strokes of hair. Then, I fill them in with a lighter/more saturated color to make the hair look much more realistic. This is where the gradients formed will be helpful: you can pick colors from the gradient, and add variety to your rendering.

At this point, the drawing should look three-dimensional after adding light, shadow, and rendering. In the final step, I add the texture of the hair strands. I focus these strands in the midtones and along the edges of the larger hair sections, where the texture is easiest to see. I also add a few stray strands around the silhouette to break up the edges and make the hair feel more natural. Notice that drawing the strands is the very last step, as we’re working from broader shapes to precise details.

This is what the final result looks like! By building the hair from simple forms and gradually adding light, shadow, color, and texture, we can draw convincing and three-dimensional hair.

Hair can be broadly classified into different types: straight, wavy, curly, and coily. Of course, there's room for a lot of variation in these types. In the example below, I’ve broken down wavy, curly and coily hair types. A lock of hair can be visualised as a ribbon or strip of paper twisting around itself. Break down hair into these basic structures to make the process of drawing more complicated hairstyles easier.

Furthermore, it can be easy to draw hair lacking in depth if the proper shapes and structures aren’t established. Think of locks as solid, three-dimensional shapes, and use gradients to transition between lighter and darker parts of the hair.

When drawing hair, make sure to include the separations between the smaller groups, and break up the contours or outline of the hair. You should do this to avoid making the hair look like one solid shape and instead create the appearance of separate locks and stray strands. Additionally,  remember that there will be a few strands that stray away from the main sections. Make sure to add variation along the edges to make the hair more interesting and realistic. This way, you get the illusion of strands instead of actually drawing every single one!

To practice your rendering skills, try rendering simple three-dimensional objects (such as cubes, cylinders, and cones). This can provide you with guidance on how to shade the shadows, midtones, and highlights in hair. Additionally, photo studies of different types of textures can also greatly help with accuracy and improvement!

Ultimately, the key to drawing hair is to work from the big picture to the smallest details. Focus on structure, volume, and lighting first, then add texture and individual strands at the very end to bring your rendering to life!