ElfQuest Fan Art
Elfquest => Art and Elfquest => Topic started by: Jeb on April 11, 2011, 03:42:04 PM
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One of the things I would really like to get better at is drawing curly/wavy hair, but I just can't seem to come up with a good method. Would anybody mind sharing some tips?
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This tutorial (the second part) is a pretty good summary of my approach: http://liiga.deviantart.com/art/Hair-Tutorial-46922701 (http://liiga.deviantart.com/art/Hair-Tutorial-46922701)
Depends if you want to do it with inks or colors, of course, but the loose idea is that shading with curly hair happens in horizontal "chunks" (light area above dark area above light area) whereas straight hair has shading in vertical chunks (light next to dark next to light, etc...excluding the horizontal "right" of highlight around the crown).
If you have these three basic things :
1) shading is in horizontal sections
2) outline is wiggly
3) there are a few individual hairs drawn on top of it all that are in some sort of an S-curve
...then your hair will look wavy/curly. Obviously loose waves won't look the same as ringlets or corkscrews. The tighter the curl, the smaller and more chaotic the light vs. dark areas will be. WIth really loose waves these "zones" are almost like horizontal stripes!
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Jeb, congrats on wanting to tackle such an interesting subject as curly hair! I think it really adds interest and character to a drawing when the subject has waves and curls instead of the usual broomstick-straight stuff.
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If you're interested in tighter curls/ringlets, then this walkthough helped me a lot when I wanted to learn it ^___^
http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=curls&order=9&offset=24#/d2nypqk
(http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=curls&order=9&offset=24#/d2nypqk)
Curls are pretty tough though (at least they were for me) until you get the feel of how they're supposed to fall and the way the curve of the curl looks in real life. It's round, not flat, which is still giving me a headache from time to time xD It's all practice *sigh*
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I've never mastered drawing "realism" or anything like that. But for me, curly hair the way I do it is actually sometimes easier than straight or wavy hair. I really only draw the ENDS of the curls, and layer those ends in rough half-circles next to and interlacing with each other like you would do with bird feathers. If I figure out how to post an image into a message on the forum, I'll post an example (hobbit) with curly, curly hair I drew. Falcon has curly hair in my Wayfarer's album, but it's not as extreme an example, a bit more subtle.