How to draw hair fast and easy for beginners: Step by Step

Drawing hair is not only about the texture – as many of you would think. You can make your hair drawing look 10x better if you know how to make the base. The composition is essential for your final result. If you are a beginner then focus on that first to learn how to draw hair easy and fast.

In this tutorial I used the Sketchy Brush Set.

1. Draw shapes that will help you define the hairline.

On the video you can see how to compose the shapes in a way that wil help you get the good hairline. It is a good way to begin because later you will do it automatically. If you draw digitally than don’t forget to use seperate layers.

For this tutorial I used Procreate App on iPad Pro 12.9 inch from 2017. I will let you know throughtout the video and this blog post what brush sets i was using and where you can get them.

2. Delete the base for hairline

Now you don’t need the hairline base anymore. Delete the base layer and let the hairline layer help you in the next steps. You can set the opacity of this layer to 10-30%.

3. Draw the base for your hair drawing

Create a new layer and draw hair with around the head. It should not be deatailed because we focus on composition now. Give it some dynamics by drawing with relaxed hand and giving every stroke a logical direction. You can exeggarate to make your hair draw more interesting and defined.

4. Create the final hair lineart on a seperate layer

The base you created in step 3 will now help you keep the proportion and composition. Try to first draw the biggest strokes, and later on add the details.

5. Repeat with different bases and lineart

The best way to learn this technique and how to draw hair easy and fast is to practice. Try to draw different hair types with the same base. On the example below I used my “Rough Hair” brush from the Cartoon-ish Make Up Brush Set. It was incresibly easy to draw this hair on this base, because I did not have to hesitate about the directions of the hair cowlicks.

You should also create different bases for the same hair structure to improve even faster. See the examples below to see how I created the base and lineart for long wavy hair and short straight hair. I also recomment to watch the video (scroll to the beginning of the post) to see the full process. It is a good thing to do because you memorize and understand it better when watching a video.

Short hair base:

Short hair lineart:

Note: Short hair goeas different direction (most common) than medium or long hair. Watch the video from 10:02 to see explanation with guiding lines. 

Long wavy hair base:

Long wavy hair base:

I hope you liked this tutorial. Let me know in the comments below what should I explain next!

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26 thoughts on “How to draw hair fast and easy for beginners: Step by Step”

  1. I love this so much and I am absolutely in love with your art and style. I know you’ve started making tutorial videos (I saw one where you use basic shapes to create a face) and I wonder if you can put them step by step like you have with this as well? I tried starting and stopping the video (for a face and for an eye) but just couldn’t quite get it right. Thankyou so much for sharing your art with the world. It’s gorgeously beautiful.

  2. Hi! I am right now planning to do video tutorials on my YouTube channel that will cover every detail of the tutorials you see on my Instagram. I am yet not sure if I will write about every of them but I think that my new videos will also be easier to follow than the face shapes one for example

  3. Thanks so much for the help I’m horrible at hair and when I tried this out it made it look so much better. And don’t forget you’re an amazing artist.

  4. Thank you for putting this out for people to use. Now my hair no longer looks like burnt spaghetti. Much Love.

  5. I love this it was super helpful I went from my hair looking like a 2-year-old did it to a pro. Thank you

  6. This was such a good tutorial! Thank you so much for this! Now the drawing that i make with hair doesn’t look like Noodles! Haha!

  7. I love this tutorial, i used the long wavy hair base first and it was super simple, anyone can learn it! just one thing, do you have a base for the face, i tried too drawl it out but it was very hard because i was just basing it off of what i saw.

  8. This helped so much! im 12 years old and i cant draw hair, i love your channel! Have a awesome day or night!!

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