Drawing manga hair is fun and challenging.
The computer is a powerful tool, not only for creating documents and surfing the web, but also for developing eye catching pieces of artwork. Manga, a Japanese style of cartooning, is often drawn using computer painting software, but drawing specifics, like hair, for manga characters can be challenging for beginning artists. The best way to create stylish hair designs to break down the process into manageable steps. Once an artist becomes familiar with an easy step-by-step method, she will be able to create manga hair using the computer easily.
Instructions
Pencil Your Character's Hair
1. Sketch a rough draft of a manga character's head using a pencil. Draw a circle with a vertical line running down its center to map the pose of the head. Draw the outline of the jawline and cheeks by extending their shape from the circle. Use your vertical line to map the point of your character's chin. Avoid adding inner details to the head, such as eyes, nose and mouth. Focus on getting a proportional figure which you can draw hair onto.
2. Darken the outline of your character's cheeks and chin by tracing over your lines hard with a pencil. Draw a horizontal line across the middle of your character's head; this will map the placement of the eyes. Pencil in the character's ears, placing them just below the horizontal line. Sketch the character's neck by drawing two vertical lines underneath the jawline.
3. Sketch the basic shape of the character's hair. Press lightly and follow the shape of the head to create an organic hairstyle. Avoid drawing bangs which will overlap the guideline mapping the position of the eyes. Add a manga feel to your hairstyle by drawing thick, jagged hair strands and hair strands which stick upward. Do not draw all the hairstrands going in the same direction -- change the direction of some hairstrands to give the hairstyle a more natural look.
4. Erase any extra pencil marks and smudges found in your drawing. Draw the inner details of your hair using your pencil. Map out highlights by drawing curving, horizontal lines going across the character's bangs. Add more hairstrands to your character by drawing vertical lines inside the outline of the hair. Do not draw too much inner detail, however; keep both highlights and inner hairstrands as simple as possible.
5. Review your drawing and adjust the hairstyle as you desire. Develop a unique look to your hair design by adding bows, pins and other hair accessories. Darken the hair by tracing over your lines with a pencil.
Color Your Hairstyle With the Computer
6. Place your drawing into your computer scanner. Scan the picture onto your computer using a high resolution setting. Save the scanned image into your documents as a JPEG file.
7. Open the image using your computer painting software. If your software allows, open a new painting layer and trace over the outline of your character's head and hairstyle. Hide the original image you scanned in and use the newly traced outline. If your painting software does not use layers, leave the drawing as it is.
8. Paint the base color of your hairstyle using the brush tools your painting software allows. Use a separate layer for the hair color if possible. Keep the hair's outline visible by placing the color layer beneath the hair outline layer. Work slowly and keep the base color a middle tone. If you have no layers to work with, color in your character's hair slowly to make sure your outline isn't overlapped.
9. Add highlights and shadows to your hairstyle. Color the highlights along the sections of hair you mapped previously. Add shadows along overlapping hair strands and along any visible hair behind the character's neck and head. Keep the coloring simple, using only one shade for both the highlights and shadows. Use separate layers for every color.
10. Review your manga hair and adjust any areas of color that seem incorrect. Add the final touches to your hairstyle using whatever tools are available to you, such as blending color shades, adding another layer of shadows and highlights, or adjusting the outline of your manga hair. Save your file when completed.
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