Hair Tutorial

I was asked how I do hair, so I did a few quick sketches, based on my drawing of alexis bledel and wrote some blurbs on it. I dont think I've done hair very well since hehe.

1. Even though I usually begin with the eyes or other feature of the face, to show only the hair I've started with a blank face shape. I begin with basic outlines of the hair, showing movement and placement.

2. Once you pick where your lighting is coming from, define where the highlights are. You can do this in a chunky way, you'll have plenty of time for touch ups after. Easier to add than take away.

3. When I do hair, I prefer to color in the darkest areas first. It helps later when you smudge shading into an area of the hair.

4. Draw in hair, just movement lines really, inside the highlighted areas. Show proper direction of hair. (this is a good time to run your finger over the areas to shade) then add some darker lines for depth.

5. Using an eraser, replace the highest points with white space. Again, for depth.

6. Details. define highlighted areas some more. Put in more dark lines if you feel like it, shade, erase, whatever you think it needs, and add wispy hairs around the hairline. Reshape jaw line if its not right.

Obviously this turns out better when you work on it for more than just an hour, and are working on a bigger picture.
I'd suggest having facial features at least started at this point. Only problem with having them finished is you might smudge them as you work. They make good reference points though.

So there you have it, my first tutorial, hope it wasn't too horrible.