This is a basic, quick and dirty of a trick of how to draw hair that doesn't look like its been glued into a plastic helmut. On with the visuals!



Okay, so here's what you are seeing. Hair tends to originate from a single point on the skull, usually on the crown near the top slightly off center. I've indicated this with a point. You draw the hair starting from this point. Even if you don't show the whole line, it should ultimately go back to this point. You can see this in picture 2 with the little arrows going along the lines, yeah, that shows you which way I was stroking the pencil.( there is nothing sick there, I swear..)

If you wanted to make this more realistic, you can keep doing individual lines, making them swish in ‘clusters’ but never forming ‘points’, which is the more stylistic way to do it, as shown in figure 3. It shows the clusters, without actually drawing them. Hair kinda clumps into locks, particularly if its long, but adding a few errant strands makes it more realistic. ( Honestly. Who has perfectly flat hair? Who hasn't dunked their head in a bucket of gel?) People have whispy strands. Let your characters have them too.

This technique works on short and long hair, but with short hair you have to imagine more because it kinda disappears behind the head. I'll do one on different styles if I get time. Also, hair should be drawn slightly above your skull line since the hair sticks up and is not plastered to the skull like paper mache. Stay a little above your skull line and give your character's hair some volume! This also works for guys and girls since hair pretty much grows the same way on the skulls of any form of human. Also works this way for furries who have hair most of the time because their anatomy tends to be human based.