Thoughts On Bodyhair (Feat. Reuben!) (Patreon)

I started doodling a body shot of my OC Reuben, and figured I could use him in talking a little bit of my body hair drawing process!

You can find an older post where I specify the brush I use here more behind this link, and there's also a timelapse video below this wall of text here of the hair drawing process.

I'll tag this as "tutorial" but despite that I don't really think it is one, at least not in the "this is the way to do things" kinda way. More of a... hey! This is how I think if this process, these are the thoughts going through my head. I'm a big believer in doing things the way each individual finds fitting to them, personally.
But to explain it further, to me body hair is all about texture and shapes. It can be kinda like an extension of shading, almost! And so much fun to mess around with, too, like how much hair is there gonna be? What hair type would this character have? Will the hairs come in contact with other hairs in a way that would impact the appearance? etc.
And since drawing individual hairs is also so repetetive, I think there's a lot muscle memory that goes into how one's style of drawing it develops.

The problem I have with explaining my process is that I function mainly on vibes 😂 Often I just... draw things, I don't necessarily know what fuels it. But with bodyhair, even if it is something that comes out mostly automatically, I KNOW there are some key observations behind the way I do it. I hope I was able to directly show or explain at least some of it, all I can say is that i LOVE love love drawing it and sometimes I just space out completely while in action, it is my happy place!