Manga: Drawing hair

Manga Professional Tips

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Mangakas give their characters a lot of hair. Learn how to draw it to make your hero come alive! How do you do it? Don't forget to add highlights.

Hair says a lot about the character's personality:

a seductress will have long shiny hair (with a lot of highlights);
a kawaii will have a fanciful, uneven cut;
the bad guy will have dark, dull hair (very few highlights).

1. Highlights on dark hair

The highlights need to be defined beforehand: these are the parts that won't be inked.

Step 1: define the volume and movement of the hair surrounding the face with a pencil.
Step 2: use a blue pencil to sketch the highlights and carefully follow the waves of the hair.
Step 3: ink line by line with a paint brush marker. Every stroke needs to be tapered at the end: This is done with just the index finger guiding the marker and making constant light, back and forth, strokes.

That little extra: apply a fairly dark screen to the whole area where your character's hair goes, then use a paint brush to add opaque white fluid highlights.

2. Highlights on light hair

Do this the opposite way: ink in the highlights and don't touch the other parts.

Steps 1 and 2 are the same as for dark hair.
Step 3: use a fine point marker to ink in the highlights: your lines should be light and tapered.