misselaney:

Natural Black Hair Tutorial!
Usually Black hair is excluded in the hair tutorials which I have seen so I have gone through it in depth because it’s really not enough to tell someone simply, “Black hair is really curly, draw it really curly.” 

The next part of Black Hair In Depth will feature styles and ideas for designing characters and I will release it around February. If you would like to see certain styles, please shoot me a message!

I adore your art so so much. I follow you both here and on Instagram and it’s just seriously amazing. May I ask, how you draw hair to be so detailed?

petite-madame:

Hi anon ^^

Thanks a lot for your question and for enjoying my art so much ^^

May I ask, how you draw hair to be so detailed? 

It depends what kind of artwork you are talking about. When I draw realistic style (without a black line art, that is to say like in this art), here is how I do it:

  1. I define the palette. I try to use a palette as subtle and
    natural as possible so that the hair looks natural, precisely. In other
    words I very rarely go for a super bright yellow for blond hair.
    NATURAL.
  2. With the darker colors, I block the colors. By
    “blocking the colors”, I mean blocking the shape of the hair because
    hair is a shape. It’s important to draw the general shape of the hair,
    whatever the haircut, before taking care of individual hair. The worst
    you can do is starting to draw hair strand by strand, on a white
    background. Horrible.
  3. Then with medium size brush, I draw
    the first strands, using medium tones. The idea is to give the general
    texture of the hair, the strands, the curls, etc. If you try to draw
    hair one by one it’s gonna look ridiculous, like in these video games of
    the 1990′s where you could see every hair individually (and no, it
    wasn’t a good thing. It looked fake as hell)
  4. Then, with a
    small size brush I draw the lighter colors and I refine the details.
    This is where I draw the tiniest strands but not on the whole hair. Here
    again, I only draw them at specific places: on the forehead, above the
    general shape of the head (where the light hits), near the ears.
  5. Finally,
    I add with a round edge brush some shadows on specific places: near the
    roots of the hair, the ears. That’s what is important with hair:
    knowing where to place shadows and highlights (along with simplifying
    some strands and detailing others)

Anyway, the important thing is to render the general impression
of the hair and focusing on details on specific parts. If you try to
draw every strands, every individual hair, it’s gonna look cheap and as
far from realistic as it can be. It’s the same process whatever the
quality of the hair: straight, curvy, wavy, etc. You just enhance
different shadows and highlights in order to create different textures.

Don’t
forget either that hair follows a pattern on the head. It grows a
certain way and it’s different according to people. When you are working
with your medium brush (step 3), you have to pay attention to “the
direction” of the hair. Look at Jensen Ackles for instance:

image

And of course, don’t hesitate to use a reference picture. If you want to
draw realistically it’s essential. And it doesn’t matter if you draw
an OC. Your OC is a woman with long ginger hair? Google is your friend
to show you how ginger hair reflects the light and all the information
you need on color and texture.

When I draw artworks for The Life of Bucky Barnes, it’s a completely different method because here, I do draw the hair almost strand by strand. Basically:

image

This is a drawing I’m working on at the moment for The LoBB, it’s Steve. So first, I define the general shape of the hair, then I draw the line art, then I block the colors (usually far darker than Steve’s actual color) and the rest is just working slowly on the details and doing some color correction from time to time. I tend to draw the root darker but it’s closer to comics than actual realistic style.

Two styles, two different methods, two different rendering. 🙂

I hope I answered your question ♥ Thanks again for enjoying my art so much ^^

bananasandguavas:

i whipped up a kamala to hopefully explain some things! i used this process for nat + sharon, cammi + drax, and nova rich (sorta). all of this was done in photoshop cs5 using kaymurph’s old brushes

if you have trouble coming up with base colors, design-seeds is a good place to go, even just for general inspiration. i used their strawberry palette to start this piece out.

feel free to leave any questions in my inbox or in an email!