How to Draw White Hair in Colored Pencil - Drawing Platinum/ Light Blonde

hey guys welcome back to another video
in my hair studies series and so this
one is actually one of the most
requested hair colors I get asked to do
a tutorial on over the past however many
months and that is sort of white
platinum very light blonde hair hair
that is so light that it's basically not
got much different tones in it not got
loads of heavy shadows so it can be
difficult to make it look
three-dimensional and realistic being
that it is such a light hair color so
today I'm going to be giving my tips on
how you can draw it realistic looking
white hair but just before we start if
you guys do want to learn even more
about getting super realistic portraits
and colored pencils then make sure you
check out my new course which is on how
to basically use all of my techniques
that I do to create super realistic
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using the code SAVE 15 and check out so
check out the top of the description
there is a link where you can go check
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can buy it from there as well but anyway
guys let's get into the tutorial if you
guys want to see the real time for this
hair tutorial as well as these 4 other
hairstyles then check out my patreon
they're all available in real time with
voiceover so the colors that I'm using
for this is the buff titanium the raw
umber 10% the French gray temp scent and
also just the French gray the darker
gray I'm also going to be using a silver
gray and I will be using a steel gray as
well but these are all Karen - luminous
color pencils but you can use any color
pencils that you have and so the first
thing that I'm doing is I'm taking the
raw umber temp scent and I'm applying
this as a base layer to those shadowed
areas I'm also using a tombow mono
eraser occasionally to erase my pencil
outlines because when you're drawing
white hair you don't want any of your
pencil strokes to show through because
it's white the hair is so light there
any really light pencil lines that you
created for your sketch will show
through so that's why I go through and
start to erase them as I draw
so once I've added the first layer of
the raw umber temps then I also go over
it with the silver gray I kind of
use those two colors as a base layer so
the raw umber temp scent and the silver
gray which is that really light silvery
gray and then I also used the French
gray 10% to build up some more of those
shadows more of those subtle shadows and
I like to use the French gray so the
darker gray for the shadowed areas and
also a go over it with the steel gray
which is a bit darker than the silver
gray and so the steel gray is great for
the shadows as well as keeping that blue
ish tone to the great hair so I am
drawing a short wavy hair style for this
tutorial and so I just go for it section
at a time and repeat the same process
with the same colors just over and over
again building up the shadows and the
basic structure to the hair it's gonna
look quite uniformed once I do all of
the sections but then will break it up
by adding a few flyweight heads so like
I said I go through it by first applying
the raw umber and the silver gray the
silver gray is really good at getting
that shadow tone in that's really subtle
not too strong and too dark and why find
the common mistake people make when
they're drawing white hair is is that
they do it to light and so they don't
include a lot of gray tones for the
shadows and even though it is white hair
that you're drawing there is still a lot
of shadow in there and a lot of gray
tone in there and so to make your white
hair look three-dimensional you really
need to study your reference image for
those really subtle shadows they might
be really subtle even more subtle than
this but they will be there it just
won't be completely white all over
there's gonna be some sort of shadow in
there and different tones it might not
be completely white it might have a
slight blue cast to it or a slight more
yellow brownie tone to it so you have to
study your reference and look for those
subtle subtle differences because it's
not going to be really in your face
these changes these gray tones it will
be subtle because the hair color is so
light and so I like to use the steel
gray and the silver gray to give like
that bluish tone to some of the bits of
hair but I also like that raw umber
because the reference that I was using
had bits of both it was slightly
he had that brownish tone to it but I
didn't want to make it too yellowy too
Brown so I did want to add some of that
a silver gray and that's still great in
there as well
and so you don't have to use these
colors but I do recommend using some
Gray's but don't just do grace as the
base colors like that more blue tone or
that more yellowy Brown earthy raw umber
tone just to make it look a bit more
realistic because even white hair it
does have that subtle bit of hue to it
and so it's really important to
determine what that is and to pick the
suitable colors for that and so you can
see I am building it up section at a
time and I'm really following the
direction at the hairs going in you can
see that my lines are nice curves that
curve with the shape of that section and
I think that's even more important when
you're drawing curly hair to do it
section at a time so I do the different
curls I'd like focus on one girl at a
time and render that and so the stages
that I sort of go through is I first
look at where the main shadows are in
that section of hair that I'm drawing so
I identify where the shadows are and
that normally helps indicate the look of
the curve and give it that curved shape
if you get the shadows in the right
place and so you can see that I build up
that structure of the sections by using
a base layer of raw umber temp scent to
block in the shadows I do it very
lightly and that's one thing that you
guys need to remember is that you don't
want to press really hard on your
pencils ready early on because you might
want to layer some different colors over
the top I also use the buff titanium and
even a bit of white to actually smooth
out some of these colors to merge them
together to blend them a bit I just went
over it with the white pencil or the
buff titanium in slightly darker areas
and just kind of merge and blended all
of these different layers together so
that it wasn't so harsh with the lines
so it looks a bit softer so you can
include some really light areas in the
hair it doesn't have to all be gray so
the lightest parts of your hair style is
going to be the highlighted areas so
this tends to be in like the center of
that lock of hair in the middle it tends
to be the most highlighted there and you
can see that that's the lightest areas
on my hair style I'm
applying any of the shadowed colors
towards the middle I'm fading into those
areas by transitioning out of those
darker colors it's stagnated points so
that it creates a really soft and subtle
transition from those shadows into those
highlights but you can see I've not
applied loads of color on the centre of
each section of hair it's quite light
and that is because it is white hair so
the highlighted areas are going to be
quite white not much color added to them
and so I tend to leave them quite white
and just go over with the white pencil
to blend some of those colors to fade up
into that so it's not just shadows
colours straight to the white I do want
to make it as a soft of a transition as
possible and that's the same with any
hairstyle any hair color that you're
doing you don't want to have really
obvious stop-start points between your
shadows and your highlights so you can
see now I'm doing the thing with the
white pencil where I'm blending
everything together and you can see that
it's slightly softening it out and now
it looks quite uniform so I went in with
my tombow mono razor and what I'm using
that for is to actually as you can see
lift up some of the colour pencil and
create flyaway different clumps of hair
and also just lighten up any areas that
I think have got a bit too dark or I
just want to make a bit brighter and so
the tombow mono eraser is really great
to use with your colored pencils I think
it works really really well and as you
can see it's just nicely created that
soft look to this hairstyle by breaking
up all of those uniform shapes by adding
some soft flyweight hairs over the top
it adds that top layer another sort of
layer which gives it more depth and
that's another thing that you need to
remember when you're drawing hair you
want it to look like it has depth like
it's in layers so you need to look at
how the sections of hair overlap over
each other and that again is how to make
a realistic look with the shadows
because when it's in layers you'll be
having more shadow on those deeper
layers of hair because the layers on top
will be casting shadow on today's
underneath layers and they won't be
getting as much light so once I've added
those few little bits of Flyway hairs as
a tombow mono eraser I look at the
reference I look at the contrast and I
see if there's anything else that I want
to tweak and that's not
adding a few dark shadows but you don't
want to go overboard some people go the
opposite way and they do too much dark
shading to a point where it looks not
that beautiful white platinum look it
starts to look really great and dark so
you don't want to overdo it with your
gray colors and if you do and you need
to lighten it up just go over it with a
layer of the white pencil to lighten it
up it's not that big of a deal you can
normally kind of change it if you make a
mistake it's not set in stone you can do
things to fix it but try to keep to
these lighter versions of gray so that
you won't go really dark so the darkest
gray I have is the French grade but even
that I'm just using on the darkest parts
I'm normally used in the French grade
10% for the shadows and most the
mid-tone areas not really the French
gray that's just for the darkest areas
I'm just going back in now with the
tombow mono eraser just to add a final
few sort of Flyway hairs and mainly I'm
brightening up each of those sections
you can see that I'm really lifting some
of that color to give more sort of
section bits of hair within the main
section so to break up each section into
small parts but anyway guys I hope you
found that tutorial useful if you did
make sure to check out my course which
is on creating realistic portraits so
check out the link in the description
for that and also the real time is on
patreon anyway guys that is it for this
video if you liked it please give it a
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as well but that is it for this video
and I'll see you in the next one bye
guys