I love drawing cartoon eyes and hair. The great part about Japanese cartoons is that a lot of the boring features are really simplified and easy draw, while some of the most attractive features are really stylized. Cartoon eyes aren’t hard to learn how to draw because you, the artist, get to decide how simple or complex you want the eyes to be. Long cartoon hair isn’t hard to learn how to draw either because most long cartoon hair is made up of curved triangles or gobs of squiggly lines. Draw the outline of the hair, add four or five squiggly lines on each side, and you have long, flowing hair.

Drawing short hair sucks, which is probably why so many cartoons have male characters with long hair. But that doesn’t mean that short hair should be avoided altogether. Figuring out better ways to draw characters is my favorite part of cartoon drawing. And short hair can be really fascinating if you manage to capture a lot of the strands of hair in the drawing. So I decided to give it a shot and create a drawing tutorial on short hair.

The first hair style is for a guy who needs to be introduced to the wonderful world of brushes. His bangs are clumped together. With this do, you can really see how strands of hair interact with each other, as these bangs seem to wrap around each other. The first part of this drawing tutorial is really simple. Just draw a half-circle.

Now start drawing the bangs. Draw a curved triangle for a part of the bangs that sticks out to the side. Then draw a curving line that leads up to the tip of the mass of hair that has collected on the forehead. This should create what looks like a hook. Then draw a curve that goes inward and upwards.

Draw the same curved triangle on the other side. Draw a line that curves downwards and travels to the middle of the mass of hair you already drew. This will make the hair appear as if it is bunching up under the clump of bangs.

Draw lines that start at random places in the mass of hair and curve with the hair below, reaching the front of the bangs.

The next hairstyle is hard to describe. It looks funky, but it somehow works. At least I think it does. Draw two slanted lines, both slanting upwards and outwards. Connect these lines with what looks like a deflated McDonalds logo. In the middle, draw two strands of hair that are sticking up.

For the bangs, draw pairs of curves that connect, forming triangle shapes. Since this character likely brushed his bangs to the right and left in order to get the bangs out of his eyes. So there should be a space where there is no bangs and the two strands closest to this gap should be larger than the other strands.

Next, let’s give curly hair a shot. Some folks gripe about curly hair, but it’s not so hard on a short head of hair. All you gotta do is draw a curvy line that forms bumps of varying shapes and sizes. Have this line go in the shape of a head.

For messy hair, go crazy with the bangs. Draw pairs of curving lines all over the place, though the majority of the strands of hair should have tips that point towards the center of the head. Throw in a few regular triangles in for diversity.

Let’s say this character grows more hair (or finds a bigger head) and went to hairbrush school and had to drop out halfway through the program because he couldn’t afford his tuition. Draw the curvy line again, but have this curvy line travel up higher.

To emphasize that this character has somewhat neat hair, draw more curving lines that curve up high at the widow’s peak. Throw in some random trianglish curving lines to show where the character got lazy with a brush.

Throw in a whole bunch of random curving lines throughout the head of hair. These lines should all curve outwards.

The next head of hair is for those with spikey hair. This is a fun head of hair to draw. It can be a little challenging though, since you have to have a pretty steady hand. All you have to do is take your pencil or tablet pen and make small squiggle lines in the shape of a head.

Since this is a short head of hair, the sides of the forehead should show a lot of scalp, while the middle of the head should dip like a V.

The next hairstyle is a really basic type for really short hair. This is for hair that is short, but not so short that it cannot be combed. Start off by drawing a half-circle again.

Do the same for this do’s scalp that you did for the previous one. Except this time, no squiggly lines. Don’t even think about it. Keep the lines smooth, but still use the general shape of the scalp with the exposed scalp on the sides. If you have no clue what I’m talking about, look at the picture.

Within the hair, draw pairs of curving lines to show that this head of hair is combed nicely.

The next head of hair is… eh… a really bad do. An interesting one… but it looks kinda dated. The hair rests mostly on the right side, while a little strip of hair is on the left side. The lines emphasize the depth that the hair has. It’s a fun head of hair to draw, but looks like something that Jeff Foxworthy would wear.

That does it for short hair for now. There are a ton of other styles I drew for today that didn’t make the cutting room floor. Hairdo 1 looks like it has mandibles growing out of the front. 2 and 3 looked too distorted and misshapen. 4 almost made the cut, but that style is used way too much in video games and doesn’t exist very often in real life (probably because it looks like a candle flame). The 5th hair style looks like a do that only Frankenstein would wear.

So that concludes this post. Next time, I’ll be looking at the diverse variety of long hair styles drawn in cartoons (except curly hair, that’s crazy).

Go forth and draw, oh mysterious viewer
Alex

Tags: bangs, brush, cartoon, cartoon drawing, comb, curly, do, drawing tutorial, forehead, hair, hairbrush, hairstyle, how to draw cartoons, manga, scalp, spikey, spiky, strands, widow's peak