I decided to start doing what a lot of artists recommend to see how it works out. Lots of artists tell you not to paint on white and to instead pick a dark color, usually grey or a dark shade of the most dominant color in your picture. I picked grey for now and I will try the skin tone next time. So far, it makes it a lot easier to see what you’re doing as you add progressively lighter and lighter colors. Plus, for me it feels easier to control how much you shade different parts when you shade this way. For digital art, just fill the background with whatever color you want to put in the background. For traditional art, just pick a canvas that has the color you would like to have as the base. Of course, none of this is 100% necessary and you can always just use a white sheet of paper when following this guide.

To sketch the character, choose a color that is light enough to show up on the dark background, which is the whole point of using a dark background to begin with. These lines will show up very well.

After getting the lines out, you can now start to throw down the colors. Start with the darkest colors. On the face, the areas that are the darkest depend on what you’re drawing. For this character, the darkest areas will be under the eyes, between the nose and the cheeks, under the nose and under the mouth. If you’re drawing a neck, the area under the chin will be darkened too. With take one, don’t worry so much about getting it accurately. Just get the general area colored because you can always color over areas that need to be tweaked.

Next, start laying some more shades on the side of the nose facing away from the light source, the edges of the ears, the chin, and near the darker shades. When two different shades come together, blend them at the edges.

Now select the lightest skin color. Add highlights to the middle of the nose and the cheeks for this drawing. Where the highlights land depends a lot on the light source, but for an area where light is all over, those areas get the most light.

Cover the areas that you haven’t covered on the face yet with the base color that you would like the majority of your character’s skin color to be made up of.

Now start throwing down those special colors over the character’s face. Put reds in the cheeks, yellow on the forehead and blue or green on the chin (or nothing). For some characters, these colors are stronger than with other characters.

I finally got sick of staring at vacant holes where there should be eyes. You can do that too by simply filling in each eye with a colored circle and a color that is not pure white, but close to being white.

Then, start shading all around the eyes. Shade under the eyes and above the eyes lightly. Shade between the eye and the eyebrows very lightly, though strongly enough so that you can see the shading. Add a little yellow to the corners inside the eyes. Add highlights on the tops of the eye sockets.

Now, start adding details to the irises. Add black circles in the center of the irises where you want the pupils to be. Draw one or two rounded white objects on the eye to indicate the glare, where the light bounces off of the eye. Off of the pupil, start drawing lines, alternating between short and long lines. Surround the iris with a darker version of whatever color you used.

Next, move on to the mouth. Mouths are really interesting in that they come in different sizes and different people have lips of different thickness. This character is an Asian girl with tiny lips. The top-middle part of the mouth has a little dip, which sorta reminds me of an M. The lips are thinner near the corners of the mouth and thicker near the bottom. The lips also tend to curve inward on the sides on the lower lip. Some bottom lips are wider, while others just seem to dip. Painting lips can be very fun and lips can be very, very intricate. Some lips are very reflective and there are also nice little folds that curve outwards and travel upwards and downwards. I decided to not play around too much with the lips until later.

For the ears, draw the basic shape of the ear. The outer edge of the ear has a fold on the top half that wraps around the ear until it reaches the middle of the ear. The ear canal is drawn using shades.

When drawing the hair, I happily discovered that the whole laying down darker tones helps with the hair in Photoshop because you can still see the light strands when you create a new layer and set it to multiply. I guess using that method is better for darker hair. Anyway, regardless of whether or not you’re using traditional or digital methods, fill in the hair with the mid-color. That’s a color that you sorta pick at whim, since color shade really depends on lighting and whatnot.

This is only part 1! More details will be added soon.

Alex

For this how to draw guide, I will use the 1:5 ratio. This is not a good ratio for drawing chibi but rather for drawing an adolescent or short adult. The following character will be drawn.

After that, I’ll be covering how all the other different ratios can be used. Of course, she doesn’t exactly have a 1:5 ratio, but when I originally drew her with a perfect 1:5 ratio, she looked really weird.

How to Draw the First Circle

Draw five circles that are the same size and stack on top of each other. On the top circle, draw two horizontal lines that curve slightly upwards. These lines will represent the eyebrows. Draw two lines that slant upwards and towards each other, with their opposite ends touching the eyebrows.

For the eyes, draw lines that travel horizontally and curve upwards. Each of these lines travel downwards and wrap around at the points of the lines that are the farthest away from each other, forming almost half circles. The half circles form full polygons by forming points as the open ends of the half-circles close. Within these closed polygons, draw curving horizontal lines that curve upwards. These lines are near the top of the polygons. This will separate these eyes into two different sections. In the lower section of each eye, draw a vertical line and have that line curve to the right.

Noses are very tricky organs to learn how to draw. Some cartoon artists completely omit the nose or try to draw minimalistic elements of the nose, since the nose is difficult to draw attractively. I try to draw the areas that are the most shaded. Also, I read that with characters with some ethnic backgrounds, the nose needs to be more emphasized. For this face, most of the shading will be on the left side. So draw two vertical lines that curve to the right slightly. For the nose, draw a vertical line that curves to the left. When you reach the bottom of this line, have the line travel horizontally to the right while durving upwards. Reverse the direction of the curve where you want the middle of the nose to be and then reverse the curve again. Finish the other side of the nose with a line that travels horizontally and curves to the right.

Draw two curving horizontal lines that connect together. These lines will curve upwards. Then draw one horizontal line that curves downwards. These lines will connect at the ends, forming a polygon. In the middle of this polygon, draw a horizontal line that curves downwards slightly.

Ears can be as simple or as complex as you want to make them. Gosh, you don’t even have to draw them. In this case, I’m just going to draw a simple curve.

Since the head is tilted a bit to the right, the shape of the edge of the face will look different for each side. One side will be a gradually curving line where the line curves downwards and to the right. On the right side, draw a line that travels upwards while curving somewhat downward. At some point, this line will curve sharply outwards before returning to the path where it was originally traveling. This is the cheekbone, a feature that some people have more pronounced than others.

To draw the hair on the forehead, draw two waving lines that are close together, eventually meeting at one point.

To the right of the strand you just drew, draw several curving lines that travel to the right and curve downwards and to the left.

On the other side of the head, draw a similar strand of hair that consists of two lines that wave and connect together.

At some point on the strand of hair, draw a line that travels downwards with the line curving downwards and to the right.

Attached to the curving line, draw another strand that curves downwards around the ear. Again, this is two lines that connect together at a point.

Draw a line that travels upwards and waves. This waving can be slight or pronounced.

On the right side of the head, draw several more strands that are clumped on top of each other.

Finally draw the top of the head. Do not draw a perfect curve unless you are drawing a cartoonish character. Most people have imperfectly shaped heads and the top of the hair often consists of different clumps, which will cause the hair to not be perfectly symmetrical.

Draw lines that connect to the bottom of the head. Since the head is turned a particular way, the part of the neck that is farther away from the direction that the head is turned will appear more curving, while the other side of the neck will appear slightly closer to the center of the head.

In the next post, I will draw out the rest of the body as it covers the rest of the circles. In that post or the post afterwards, I will add color and shading. Then I’ll be drawing the 1:6, 1:7 and 1:8 ratios. If you would like any particular characters drawn using these ratios, email me at sketchinghouse@gmail.com. I’m going to try to talk Marisol into doing a how to draw chibi characters, since I have no experience drawing those types of characters at all.

See y’all next week,

Alex

Start by drawing a curving line that slants towards the head.

On the part of the ear that’s farther away from the head, draw the line as a curve that suddenly goes into a slant that moves towards the head.

Draw a line that starts near the bottom middle near the edge of the ear. This line will travel along the outer edge of the ear until you reach the top corner closest to the head. Then the line will curve downwards and away from the head until it stops.

Where the last line you drew ends, place your drawing tool slightly above the end and draw a curving line that travels downwards. Continue until you draw a half circle.

The next part looks sorta like an upside down S that is a little more elongated and attached to the half circle you drew.

At this point, draw another S that is right-side up and attaches at the bottom to the line that you just drew.

Now locate the inner curving line and draw two curving lines that travel downwards and attach at the tip like a triangle or a strand of hair.

Finish by drawing a line that travels near the inner line that you just drew on the outer side on the inner side of the ear (good thing there’s pictures, this is confusing). At the bottom of the ear, draw a small curving line that curves upwards.

Next, let’s try another type of ear (woo!). Start off by drawing a curving line that looks like a hook. The line will be curving towards wherever the head is supposed to be.

Wherever you want the bottom of your ear to be, draw a line that curves downwards.

On the side of the ear that is away from the head, draw a slightly curving line that connects both of the other lines.

Draw a curving line within the hook part of the line and have that line travel along the outside part of your line until you stop somewhere near the top.

Where the last line ended, move up a little and draw a line that travels downwards and curves, attaching to the outer part of the ear. This line will travel down, slant downwards and to the left and then slant more steeply until it touches the outer part of the ear.

Now head over to the other part of the ear and draw two lines, one that curves upwards and one that curves downwards. These lines will be curving away from each other. The bottom line will slant downwards more and father out than the upper curve.

From where you left off, draw a line that travels downwards and curves towards the character’s head.

From this point, draw a similar curving line that sorta forms a small M but stops early and slants more towards the head.

The next part’s incredibly difficult to describe. Yeah, the ear is kinda tricky. Luckily, most people aren’t experts in what an ear looks like and most people won’t notice if there are minor errors in the ear. Of course, if you’re trying to get the ear really right, you’ll need to draw from an art model.

Now, let’s draw the ear that’s really difficult to see. The ear that is drawn from the back. Start by drawing a slightly curving line.

Draw a second line that makes a pass at the first line. This line travels more downwards and is even less curved.

At the bottom of the last line that you drew, draw a second line that curves in the other direction.

At the bottom of this line, draw a small curving line that travels away from where the ear connects to the side of the head and curves downwards. Then draw a line that travels directly upwards.

Where you left off at the straight line, draw a second line that curves upwards and away from the ear.

Draw a slightly curving line that connects the two lines that are traveling somewhat vertically up. Draw a line that hangs freely to the left of the ear. Find the bottom of the ear and draw a line that curves away from the ear and upwards.

Part One of the Hair Trilogy

Part Two of the Hair Trilogy

How to Draw a Long Hair Explosion!

Hello to you all! This is the last hair tutorial from me for awhile. I got really carried away with the drawing, but I created a bunch of new hairstyles that I’m going to put on my characters. Today I’m playing around with long hair. The really great thing about long hair is that there’s really no limit to what you can do with it. And long hair looks so… cool. *(^_^)*

Lengthening the hair on a character means only one thing… HAIR EXPLOSION! That’s right. Bangs, strands, flips, curls, and dos can go all over the place.

I really, really love drawing long hair. Hair can have a fine, coarse, or wirey texture. People with drier hair have all sorts of curls that flow and bounce all over the head like they’re taking over the joint. Wetter hair is long and free-spirited, blowing whereever the wind wants to take it. Some hair-owners try to make their hair symmetrical and pretty, while others let hair go wherever they want it to. The wilder the hair, the more interesting it is to look at.

I’ve seen cartoon hair in three styles. The most common seems to be the angle look, since the really sharp edges of the angle show up really nice on a cartoon. Figure one shows the basic principles of the angles. Lazier artists draw huge gobs of hair and then fill these gobs in with lines. But these gobs of hair can look really great, especially if colored well. You can see the gobs of hair in figure 2. They have a really nice cartoon look to them. But if you’re going for a much more realistic look, you might want to try drawing each strand individually. There’s really no limit to how realistic you can make each strand of hair, but you should keep two things in mind. The more realistic you make your hair, the more realistic you should make the rest of the character. Also, the more realistic you make the hair, the longer it will take to draw the entire head of hair. Really, there’s no limit to how detailed you can make a head of hair.

Figure 1                     Figure 2

Drawing Tutorial Part 1: How to Draw Gobs of Hair.

There’s really only four parts to a long set of hair. These are the front, back, sides, and top. The top is really the easiest to draw… most of the time. If you’re getting really creative, you might want to draw spikes and curves all over the top of the head. But for neater hair, all you need to do is draw a nice round line. Or you can draw a slight dip in the middle of the top of the hair. This is the easiest part of learning how to draw long hair.

Back of Hair

The next part of the hair usually drawn is the back, though you can start drawing from any part of the hair. Do not get the back confused with the sides. The outline of the back of the hair can be seen at the sides of the head, but the sides are actually the part of the hair that connects to the front of the hair, or bangs.

This is where hair gets defined as a gob of hair or  angled hair. Draw gobs of hair like the hair on the left by focusing on the outline of the hair. For the style on the left, all you have to do is draw slightly wavey lines going vertically. Then, you get to decide how detailed you want the hair to be by adding lines.

Draw simple lines

Draw really simple lines that curve roughly the same way as the outline of the back of the hair curves. This hairstyle is great practice for new artists, since these lines can be drawn without a whole lot of effort.

As you might see on the picture to the left, the curving lines on the back of the hair curve sharply and collide in the center of the top of the hair. This is done to emphasize that each strand of hair connects to the character’s scalp.

When you reach the bottom of the hair, you can make the hair do whatever you want it to. You can make the hair disappear behind the character’s shoulders, or you can draw a really simple straight line that neatly connects the bottom of each strand. You can have each strand end with an angle, or you can have the strands of hair curve upwards. The choice is yours.

Click to view description.

Sideburns included.

For globs of hair, the sides of the hair can be completely ditched. The sides of the hair are often brushed so that they become part of the back of the hair. The bangs seem to rest magically on the forehead. If the sides of the hair are draw, they often appear like renegade sideburns that go in directions different than the rest of the hair. This part of the hair can be really fun, since you can do all sorts of things with the sides of the hair. But this part of the hair is nowhere near as fun as the front of the hair, aka the bangs.

These bangs clump together on each side and curve outwards.

These bangs clump together in a really cute way.

The bangs are where an artist can really show creativity. Bangs vary based off the texture of the hair, the wetness, the length, and how the bangs are combed. One thing that is almost universal about bangs is that they are almost always curvy. But how they curve is up to you. They can curve in a natural way by having the curves on the left and right curving with their strands pointing towards each other. This often creates a space in the front of the head. The strands of hair can curve in all sorts of random directions. Thick, short bangs often clump up in a really cute way, creating really unique and adorable bangs. Also, a bunch of hair can really rebel and clump together in what looks like a giant strand. This curve can then swing in a really dramatic direction. This monstrous strand of hair can cover the entire face. The possiblities are endless.

Clumpy bangs: when bangs go horribly wrong!

Drawing Tutorial Part 2: How to Draw Angled Hair

The sides of the hair have little angles that break away from the sides of the hair and then return.

This hairdo is made up of almost all the same curved angles.

Angled hair is extremely common in cartoon drawing. Angled hair creates really nice points for the tips of the strands of hair. These strands can curve, or they can form nearly perfect triangles. This type of hair might seem intimidating at first, but anyone can master it! The back is sometimes drawn as really large curves. Other times, the back is drawn just like the hair globs, only with little angles breaking away from the hair to create a more messy look. The top is usually drawn just like in the hair gobs, though sometimes the artist can get really creative and draw angles that curve upwards. One of the most defining features with this style of hair is the sides of the hair. Sometimes the sides behave in a renegade fashion like with the hair globs, while other times the sides of the hair look just like the back of the hair. The

With angled hair, the top of the hair can go crazy.

only difference is that the sides of the hair are always a little shorter

The bangs sorta hang there, covering the face.

and get shorter as they merge with the bangs. The bangs can be drawn however you like, though the hairdo usually looks better if the bangs are drawn similar to the rest of the hair, unlike with the hair globs. This hair-drawing method is great for really messy hair, though it takes more effort to draw. Since this style involves more lines, there is more room to screw up some of the lines. But drawing curves and points are easier than you think and you’ll soon get the hang of it.

Drawing Tutorial Part 3: How to Draw Individual Strands of Hair

Individual strands can get out of hand.

Its really easy to screw up the individual strands of hair.

This part deserves a whole tutorial on its own. Individual strands can get ever more complex and detailed when you add shading and color. Given enough effort, you can eventually make individual strands of hair look like real hair. What sucks is that a project like this can take hours. Thus, comic artists have come up with the methods described above for drawing hair. But the angled hair and gobs of hair don’t work with really wavy or curly hair. With curly hair especially, you will have to draw each strand of hair individually in order to make the hair look right. The reason why curly hair is less common in cartoons is that it is very hard to get curly hair to look right and drawing curly hair takes forever. Drawing individual strands of hair really only involves drawing two similar lines and connecting them at one end.

That concludes this drawing tutorial and the rest of the tutorials on basic hair drawing. Hair can get way more complicated when shading, tones, line darkening, coloring, and texture are thrown into the mixture. Hair can get really messy (literally) when in motion. Sooner or later, someone on here will do a tutorial on any one of these things.

Thanks for reading!

“There’s a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple too
And up in the nursery an absurd little bird
Is popping out to say “cuckoo”

Regretfully they tell us Cuckoo, cuckoo
But firmly they compel us Cuckoo, cuckoo
To say goodbye . . .

. . . to you,”

(Sorry, song’s stuck in my head >.<)

Alex

Draw small curving triangles that vary in size and length.

Add lines in the middle of the hair to give the hair depth. If you completely screw up the lines like I did, just erase them.

Draw a curve for fun. It can curve upwards.

Draw what is almost a circle. Leave a space at the bottom of the circle. Draw two zig-zag lines that go upwards from this space. Draw two curving lines that lead up to where the bangs should be. Draw the bangs as curving triangles.

Make this weird-looking hairdo suddenly look normal by adding curving lines that go in all kinds of directions (except DOWN). This will make the hair look more round. Also, add lines on the sides of the mass of hair that curve in the same way as sides of the hair. This will emphasize some of the strands of hair.

Side profiles of hair are hard to imagine sometimes, depending on how complex the hairstyle is. Start by drawing a half circle.

The rest of the hairstyle is kinda weird. Draw a right angle right in the middle of the hair that connects both ends of the half circle. Have both parts of the right angle curve.

Draw curving lines coming out of the top part of the right angle, curving towards the front of the head. Draw more lines on the lower part of the hair mass that curve towards the back of the head.

Draw the deflated McDonalds logo.

At the ends of the deflated golden arches above, draw long, curving lines that curve in towards each other. At the ends of these curved lines, draw lines that curve upwards and away from each other. These curving lines should meet together to form a baby McDonalds logo.

Draw vertical curving lines on the sides of the hair.

Draw what looks like part of a cloud. The top of this hairdo is similar to the top of the first hairdo in this drawing tutorial.

Draw really curvy strands of hair that curve in different directions. Draw some lone strands of hair to give this style a really savory mullet-look.

Draw a really smooth curve.

Underneath the really round top of the head, draw triangles that curve towards each other.

Draw curving lines that dance around each other, forming what looks like a sparkle. This will make the hair look very round and shiny.

These hairstyles really overpopulate cartoons and the 70’s. Master them if you want to draw mostly modern characters. Also, do not write blog posts at night unless you absolutely have to. If you’re drawing a historical or fantasy setting, you’ll probably be drawing a lot more long-haired characters. Though long hair is making a comeback.

Stay tuned for Hair III: The Blob That Ate Mah Page!

Alex

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