Drawing Ginger Hair in Coloured Pencil- How to Draw Realistic Hair Video

hey guys welcome back to a new tutorial
this is going to be the start of a mini
series where I'm going to go through
five videos on how to draw different
hair colors and different hairstyles in
color pencil so for this first one I'm
going to be going through how to draw or
burn sort of gingery looking hair
because this hair color can be very
difficult because you don't want to get
to look to sort of orangey and
artificial so I'm going to be going
through how to get a natural looking
hair color and we're also drawing an
updo for this one so that's gonna be
really fun to give sort of my techniques
for but just before we start if you guys
do want to learn how to master realistic
color pencil portraits then make sure
you check out my brand new course where
you can learn all of my techniques and
so for you guys you can get 15% off that
by using the code SAVE 15 at checkout so
the link is at the top of the
description make sure to check out the
course trailer see exactly what's
included in the course and you can also
buy it from there as well so let's get
into today's tutorial if you guys want
to see the real-time version of this
hair study as well as the other four
then they are available over on my
patreon in real time with voiceover so
you can follow along with me so the
colors that I'm using for this are the
black pencil a dark brown so this is the
prismacolor sepia I'm also using burnt
sienna which is Karin - I'm using burnt
ocher most these are Karen - pencils I'm
also using the brown ochre and also just
an orange color in case we want those
more saturated areas and also raw Sienna
which is more like a yellowy golden tone
and I'm also going to be using an exacto
knife to pull up some little details
which you'll see me do later on so those
are the colors I'm using I will list
them in the description as well if you
want to check them out but the very
first thing that I've done is I've
obviously got the sketch down but I take
that raw Sienna pencil so that's our
lightest color and I just start to use
that to add the base layer so I like to
work on the hair section at a time
especially when it's like an updo like
this and they are in quite obvious
sections so I first added that raw
Sienna everywhere and then I go in with
the bird ochre which is that slightly
darker color to start to get in some of
those shadows so I'm going in lines and
following the direction that the hair is
going in and
I'm going in with my sepia which is
again another darker pencil and I'm
using that for the even darker shadows
which tend to be on either sort of end
of each section of hair so the ends of
each section of hair are darker and then
as you get towards the middle of the
section of hair it's more highlighted so
I just start to build up more and more
shadows using the sepia and the burnt
sienna as well and then once I've got
that in and the basic shadows I like to
blend over with that with our lighter
colors like the raw Sienna to start to
get a smoother look once I've got that
smoother look I then go back in with our
shadows like the black for more of the
intense shadows and just start to really
get that contrast how I want it to be so
that's all I do for each section of hair
at the moment and I just repeat that
process throughout each section of hair
so again first going in with the raw
Sienna you don't have to use those exact
same colors you know anything light like
a light sort of creamy yellow like a
yellow ochre something that's not too
saturated and is quite natural looking
and then I go in with the burnt ocher
which is a very warm sort of orange
brown tone it's not too orange and
in-your-face
it's just a very natural color which is
what you want when you're drawing or
urban ginger sort of hair you don't want
it to be too vibrant then I go in with
the burnt sienna which is again that
ready Brown tone so it's great for urban
red ginger hair and the brown I just
find that Browns are nice for darkening
up in a areas and blacks are great if
you need to get really dark one tip I do
have for you guys is if you are using
black for your hair drawings I don't
recommend just doing black I recommend
layering other colors over the top so it
does look a bit more natural otherwise
it can look quite flat and it won't
really work with the other colors in the
hair you want the hair the shadows in
the hair to look natural you don't want
it to just to look black because they'll
just look very strange you just want
that nice dark brown tone so I'm
basically doing that exact same
technique over and over again for each
section it is important to work in like
sections because the hair is in clumps
it's not just loads of loose strands of
hair one technique that you can see me
do now though is I am using the fabric a
style like ink eraser in
kind of like one of those thicker razors
and I'm using that to lift up some of
the color pencil for areas that are a
bit more highlighted maybe there's some
Flyway little clumps like looser bits of
hair to give a messy look and so I just
lift the colored pencil off and then I
go back in and just darken it up because
you don't want it too light so now I'm
moving on to the braid part of the updo
and when you're doing updos and when the
hairs like up and it's in like a messy
bun it can be very kind of confusing
because there are a lot of random shapes
of hair but honestly just focus on the
reference and focus on each individual
shape one at a time and just render each
slight shape it may look a bit weird but
once you've done them all it will really
come together and the colors that I'm
using are the same in the same sort of
order some areas might be more shadows
so you might need to layer some more of
the darker Browns and the blacks and
some areas might be slightly lighter
where they won't need so much of those
darker shadows so each section of hair
will be different depending how much
light is getting to it the darker
shadows like you can see in between each
of these sort of plots in between the
sections there are bits of darker
shadows and that's because they are more
set back so not as much light is getting
to them as like the loose strands of
hair on the top of the hair so that's
why you can see me layering a bit more
black and a bit more brown tones so my
key sort recommendations when drawing
ginger hair is to avoid using such a
bright orange tones as you can see here
it looks nice and ginger Bay looks
natural it doesn't look really orange
and that's because I'm not just using
orange colors I'm using very natural
tones like the burnt ochres the burnt
sienna zuv Browns I'm not going in with
like bright oranges and bright yellows
that's similar to when you're drawing
blonde hair you don't just want to go in
with really bright yellows when you're
drawing blonde hair try to stick to
those neutral natural tones when you're
drawing hair no matter what hair color
you're drawing try to stick to the less
sort of saturated colors so I'm working
on the bottom part of the braid again
this time I'm going in with the burnt
ocher first so you can switch the sort
of way that you applied the pencils you
don't have to apply them in
same way like the same order like the
raw Sienna then the burnt okay you can
mix it up and try different things for
yourself sometimes I layer them in
different ways but I'm still using the
same colors it's just sometimes I might
blend out with the light color at the
end rather then adding it as a base
layer at the start so sometimes I might
want to apply the darkest shadows first
rather than working from light to dark
but that is up to you I just switch it
up sometimes as I'm doing the hair just
to do something different especially if
you're wearing a lot of hair it can be
nice to change it up a bit but as you
can see on that own many of these little
sections of hair would look realistic
but together they are starting to look
realistic and they will look a lot more
realistic when I go in and I use my
knife technique which is the thing that
I do to really really make it look like
10 times more realistic in my opinion
now I'm working on the actual sort of
bun part of the updo and again this is a
lot of like code sections all sort of
looped into each other and this can be
very confusing if you try and do it all
in one go you really do need to take
this slow one mistake that I really do
see a lot of people do when they're
drawing hair is they don't take it slow
enough they go too messy they don't
spend the time layering each section and
it really comes across in the final
result if you've rushed it you'll be
able to town this hairstyle did take me
here about two and a half hours to do
which it is quite a long time but it's
not if you are getting a good result so
it's not an awful lot of time to invest
if you're getting a great result rather
than you spend in like an hour doing
something but not looking great and you
have to try and correct it and you're
not happy with it it's worth spending
double the amount of time to make
something that you're really proud of
and you should put a lot of time into
your work because it's not you're not
trying to rush it you want to do
something that you're proud of so I'm
just building it up and building up in
the exact same way so back to what I was
talking about with blonde hair you don't
want to use those yellow tones so stick
to your neutral colors and also it's
fine to use black like I said you can
use black it might seem weird to use
black but as long as you layer
the colors over-the-top so now I'm using
my exacto knife which is just a crafting
knife it's quite cheap and you can see
I'm using it to scrape off the color
pencil to reveal the lighter layers
underneath and what this means is you
can use the knife to get really really
fine details that you wouldn't be able
to get with your pencil so you can use
it to get those flyaways strands of hair
and detail within each section of hair
that you've done and it really just
helps break up all those uniform
sections of hair so that you can get
really realistic looking hair because
you can add the loose little strands
that go over each section and it just
really does help make it look a lot more
realistic because of the fact that
before it just looked really uniformed
and there was no sort of messiness to it
but now it looks a lot more natural but
anyway guys that is it for this tutorial
I hope you enjoyed it remember that you
can get my course if you want to learn
even more about drawing realistic
portraits then check out the top of
description and all of the real time
stories are available on patreon if you
do want to follow along and put what
I've kind of talks about into more
practice and actually create this
drawing yourself but this is the final
result let me know if you have any
questions anyway guys that is it for
this video I really hope you enjoyed it
if you did make sure to give it a thumbs
up and subscribe if you're new around
here for more tutorials like this but
that's it for me and I'll see you in the
next one bye everybody