Pixel hair tutorial (part 1) (Patreon)

Henlo! A tutorial, after all this time? Yes. I was trying to nap and all I could think about was making a hair tutorial so hair I am geddit. geddit. i'm funny ok. This has the file I used so you can look at it all frame and frame and see how it's made 

Warning! /very/ image heavy and it gonna get anime af 

Keep in mind this is purely subjective - there is no right or wrong way to draw or colour or shade or do anything in art, this is just how I like to make things. 

For this I'll be using this handy dandy mannequin base + some other pieces I've made over time as examples 

Topics covered 

• Various hair styles
•  Light source 
•  Highlighting and back light 

Hair styles 

God there's so many. It's not always a step that's actually needed, but drawing the full skull can be a good way to figure out how to place hair and how high up. Don't be afraid to draw above the skull line, hair rarely sits flat on the head. 

I start by drawing the hair line at the top or the fringe/bangs (I'm gonna say fringe bc it's more familiar to me). Where does the hair part? Which direction does the fringe go? Connect the hair part to the fringe and it becomes a lot easier to figure out direction. Clean lines and add details as you go - is the hair straight or fluffy? Curly or ultra frizzy? Some hair types will need a lot more lines than others. 

Follow the lines made by the parting and fringe. The fluffier the hair the more it will stick out. 

Colouring! I like to draw a little sun in the corner for light source so I don't forget heheh. For choosing colours, never choose a colour that is just a darker or lighter version of your base. Using yellow? Don't use another yellow for shading! Use a warmer colour like an orange or red, or a cooler colour dependent on mood. I'm very into pastels and warm colours so eh. For this I used a slight pinky-orange for shading. For highlighting I hue-shifted to a slightly brighter yellow. Still yellow but not in the same yellow range as the base colour. 

When you have your base colour, think 'what other colour goes well with this? What matches this base colour well?' Usually the answer to that is one colour to the left or the right on the spectrum. Got green? Use a blue/teal, or a lime green, a pale yellow if you're particularly adventurous. Got purple? A blue works just fine. Orange? Red and pink and yellow it up babey. I can't emphasise enough just how much you should not stick to the same colour for every shade. 

For colouring lines in hair I like to reuse colours. The lines over the shaded parts are notably darker but the lines over the base are the same colour as the shading. Try using a grayer version of colours for lines. I'm also pretty fond of using grays/tinted gray for the back of hair. It makes viewers know that part of the hair is at the back around the neck and not around the front. Colour in eyebrows and eyelashes to match the hair. 

You don't have to but adding ears is nice 

'But Finch, soulful wonder bird,' I hear you cry, 'what if I don't want so many lines? What if I want more colours?' I got ya fam 

A less lined approached is pretty easy and it's this- just colour in the lines. This one follows most of the same approach as the other one- follow the flow of the lines but this time a whole lot more colour and hue shifting. In case you didn't know, hue shifting is when you take a colour and shift it to the side like so, where I shifted the pink on the left to be a bit more yellow on the right 

It's great for making a lighter colour that doesn't stand out/contrast and clash like all hell 

Admittedly I wanted this one to be white but white is a bitch to colour and it ended up being pink 

The more distinct lines around the fringe were coloured in and the lines closer to the light source were coloured using the shading colours. The areas of hair around the neck are darkest and least saturated to keep it looking like it's at the back of her head. Highlight colours are borrowed from lighter shading colours. Again, places the hair touches the face are coloured light. 

It's important to consider what colours compliment each other. Pink always goes well with yellow and purple but not when it's super saturated. A soft, almost off purple and yellow is way better. For pinks I like to avoid magenta and the 'traditional' pink range and use more of a orange-y red. Purple is a very strong colour so I hue-shifted the pink to make the lightest purple. Strong colours like the cool colour range (anything from forest-y green right up to violet) can easily be hue shifted to get darker colours without changing the saturation at all. Warmer colours can also be hue-shifted to get a nice soft gradient. 

I really like hue shifting. 

'But Finch! I want to try shapes and curls and do sparkles and other cool stuff!' I got ya fam 

Ringlets are ... a thing .... but there's a very easy way to draw them! 

Sometimes ya just wanna go crazy with colours and that's cool. Consider the bottom red sun as a secondary light source of Not The Base colour. Highlights? Go even more crazy with colour! The only real thing to keep in mind in colouring like this is do the colours work together? Cyan magenta and yellow is a ~classic~ colour combo so yeah it works here 

Fun tip for drawing hair- got one side that doesn't match/feel right/feel symmetrical? Just flip it. Copy the half that works and half that bad boi. Just do it. No one cares. 

That's all for tonight! Tomorrow I'll cover ears, blending with the face, a different palettes/how to handle certain colours and how to tackle weirder hair like underwater 

Wanna see something in the next part? lemme know bc i'm a dumb dumb and won't post anything that isn't in my notes unless i'm told what to talk about  

Sorry the file is only in aesprite, I will make a photoshop version if anyone wants that