DO'S & DON'TS How To Draw Realistic Hair using Coloured Pencil - Step By

hello everybody welcome back to my
channel so today we're going to be doing
a do's and don'ts for realistic hair
using colored pencils so this is my
first in a series of color pencils do's
and don'ts videos and so I thought I'd
start with hair because it's something
there quite a lot of people find really
tricky with colored pencils so on the
Left we have got the don't version and
on the right we've got the D version so
I'm going to be giving you some tips on
how you can get really realistic looking
hair also on my patreon I have got the
real-time version of this with
voiceovers that you can follow along
with me in real time and you learn some
more techniques and tips over on there
so I'll leave a link to that in the
description also all of my materials are
also listed in the description if you
want to check out what exactly I'm using
to create these pieces anyway guys let's
get on with the tutorial so the first
thing that I'm doing is the don't side
and the first common mistake the
beginners make is that when they're
doing their initial sketch using
graphite they just do it a bit too dark
and the problem with this is that if you
have a dark initial sketch when you add
colored pencil over the top especially
in the lighter areas those pencil lines
will really show through so what you
want to do is use a needle to raise
there just to lighten up your sketch
before you go in and add all of the
colored pencil also here I'm starting
with an inaccurate sketch and if you
start with an inaccurate sketch then
you're going to not set yourself up well
to get a realistic drawing so really try
and nail that initial sketch so that you
have the best possible chance of getting
a realistic drawing also when you're
doing colored pencil you don't really
want to be using a piece of paper that's
got a lot of texture to it
so if you want to get really smooth
results it's really hard if you have
quite a lot of texture in your paper so
as you can see when I'm adding the
colored pencil is very grainy and that's
because it's on a texture piece of paper
so when it comes to add in the color
pencil the first thing that I did kind
of wrong was I went in very dark with a
pencil straight away and I did it quite
messy I just drew in all of the
individual hair lines rather than
looking at kind of the area that needs
to be shaded in with the brown so try
not to go in too heavy to start with
just build up those layers
slowly another thing is that
particularly when you're drawing blonde
hair blonde hair isn't yellow so you
don't need to go in with really
saturated vibrant colors so make sure
when you're doing blonde hair you don't
go in with a yellow color another
mistake that I see people make when they
using color pencils is that they use
their pencils blunt and look at this
pencil that is really blunt but people
use them this blunt and this is not
going to get you a smooth result because
you can't fill in all of the grain at
the paper it just lays on top and you
have the white bit showing through so
make sure you sharpen that pencil before
you go in and add the colors so what I'm
doing now is I use a black pencil and
especially when you're doing blonde hair
you don't want to use black for your
shadows it won't mix well with the other
yellow tones or cream tones and
especially with blonde hair there's not
really any black in it I use black when
I'm doing really dark hair but you don't
need to do black on blonde hair and
finally you don't need to outline every
clump of hair that you've drawn so it
depends what style you're using but
obviously this video is catered for
realistic drawing so you don't need to
outline all of your clumps of hair
because in real life hair is not
outlined so here is a general list of
all the don'ts in case you miss them the
final dome that I did was I rubbed my
hand across the paper and this is going
to lead to smudging so try not to do
that but anyway you can pause it on that
list of don'ts if you want to read them
even more but let's get straight onto
the do so I didn't record myself doing
the initial sketch because you can't
really see it and that's good because
like I said you want to start with a
really light and accurate sketch so
there's many ways that you can get an
accurate sketch like using the grid
method or using a like tracing or
monitor or even just freehand in it so
make sure you start with an accurate
sketch and what I'm doing now is I'm
using that exact same pencil which was
the sepia and I'm using Karen -
luminance pencils so this is like a
brown tone but the difference is I'm not
going in with it really really hard and
really dark I'm layering it up slowly
and I'm looking and focusing on the
direction that the clumps of hair are
going in so like before
kind of went in and drew lots of pieces
of hair without really thinking about
the direction or how they're flowing but
now I'm just focusing on the clumps of
hair and rendering each clump rather
than just trying to draw in every single
strand of hair I'm also making sure that
I start with a sharp pencil before I go
in just to make sure that I'm getting
into all the white grain and I can get
really smooth finish and the difference
here is also that I'm using a smoother
paper so before I was using more of a
texture paper and Here I am using
Bristol paper by Strathmore and it's the
plate surface paper but again that's all
listed in the description and this is
really really smooth so you can get
really smooth results which is really
hard to do if you've got really textured
paper especially if you do in stuff like
skin so I'm still just going through
with that brown tone and I'm just using
it to establish all of the shadows so I
do like to establish my shadows first so
there it's easier to judge all of the
other values and how light or dark they
need to be but once I've done that I'm
going in with a color called raw umber
and lots of color pencil sets have this
type of color and as you can see I
didn't go in with a yellow color a lot
of the colors that you use are quite
muted guide cream tones or raw umber is
a really great base for blonde hair I
use it loads when I'm drawing blonde
hair so I'm just gonna go and add that
throughout the whole of the hair just as
a base it's quite light and you don't
need to press hard so when you're doing
hair or portraits it's really important
that you layer up lightly rather than
going in and burnishing straight away if
you burnish straight away it's hard to
add layers on top and get that smooth
kind of finish it gets at quite a
streaky finish so I'm just very lightly
building up the layers if you need to go
darker
don't press harder on that pencil just
switch to a darker version of that color
so like this is the raw umber temps them
but if you needed to go darker but stick
with in that same sort of color range
then you could just go to the raw number
like 50% so now I'm trying to get the
color more accurate so I'm going in with
the brown ochre temp scent
which is very much like a creamy brown
sort color but it's very light and it
makes a really nice blonde tone it's
more natural if you're struggling to
find what colors you need to do the hair
then I recommend getting your reference
photo which you should use by the way
always try and use a reference photo
especially if you're doing realism and
import your reference photo into
something like paints and then just use
the little eyedropper tool and select
different areas of the hair and this
will give you more kind of accurate
selection of the colors that you need
and you can just go in with your color
pencil set and match those colors as
closely as you can so now I'm going in
with that raw umber 50% which is the
darker version and I'm just using this
to add some more of the shadows and two
things here is that you can really tell
that I'm taking more time doing this the
other one took me like five ten minutes
maybe not even ten minutes but this one
took me like two hours which is a
significant difference and I won't be
able to get this level of realism in
anything like less than an hour even an
hour is way too short I'd never do a
piece a hair like this in an hour it
always takes me about two hours because
that's how long I need to layer and do
all of the shading order the colors
it's just how long it takes if you want
to do realism you've just got to be
prepared to spend that time to build up
the layers if you rush it then you are
going to get really bad results ready so
I'm just building up with that raw umber
still not applying lots of pressure and
I'm still making sure that I'm using a
really really sharp pencil so there I
don't get really fuzzy pencil marks
which is what you get if you have Brun
pencils it just becomes a really fuzzy
on the edges so you don't get like
strong and crisp lines and I'm just
using that to shade and there's a thing
that you'll notice is I'm not going back
and forth with the pencil I'm just kind
of flowing it with the direction that
the hairs going in and I'm slowly
transitioning up to where that
highlighted area is like in the top
right hand corner but I'm just going
really really lightly we will build up
to the darker tones but I just like to
do it slowly and the more layers you
have the more sort of depth your drawing
has and that's what gives it that
look it looks like lots of layers of
individual hairs so now that I've
basically got everything established I
know where the highlighted areas are
because I didn't really add any shadow
tones on them and I've got everything
sort of saturated we've color pencil I'm
now going to go and render it a bit more
smooth everything out and just make it
look more realistic so I'm going back in
with that Brown like I said I'm not
using black for blonde hair it doesn't
need it it doesn't get that dark and I'm
just going in with this dark brown just
to add in the darkest shadows which
tended to be the bits of hair like that
were next to her face because obviously
that covers up that piece of hair is
like covered up so I'm just going in
with a bit more pressure you can use
more pressure as you build up the layers
in fact you need to do that to blend it
all together especially with wax based
pencils like even if you don't have
these pencils you can still get this
result with prismacolor so that's what I
used to use and you can get similar
results because they are creamy as well
if you use the fabric castell
polychromos then can't really blend in
the same way but you can still get
amazing looking hair with the
polychromos because I've also used them
as well you just need to kind of change
your technique a bit for them because
they aren't like wax based so now I'm
going in with the brown ochre and I'm
using the brown ochre just add a bit
more saturation so in the reference
photo a few areas had a bit more
saturation and some areas were a bit
warmer as well so I'm just going in and
I'm adding more saturation and I'm just
layering more colors and just to get the
color really accurate again Brown okay
is something that's in quite a lot of
the color pencil sets it's quite a
generic tone and so you should be able
to get this or something like this in
your color pencil sets and this is a
great color again for blond hair and as
you add more and more layers they will
naturally start to blend together to get
a really smooth result especially with
this brand as you layer they kind of
blend together the pigment blends and
you get that nice finish without having
to like work really hard to burnish and
push down on the pencil
you should really need to
until you get to like the final layer
where you can like smooth everything out
even now I still have some grains
showing through but I'd like to get all
my clothes down and then take care of
that towards the end so again I'm
building up some more shadows as I get
towards the final layers I just kind of
tweak things as I see them so if I see
areas that need to be a bit darker I'll
go in with some darker colors like the
sepia the dark brown to just kind of
tweak things until they are at the level
that I want them to be at for realism
contrast is so important you need to
have your darks dark enough and your
highlights bright enough because that's
what's going to give it depth make it
look three-dimensional and really pop
out the page so the important things are
having a good contrast and then
obviously having the detail especially
with realism detail is really important
so I'm just blending it out a bit with
the raw umber 10% in the lighter areas
pressing a bit harder just to kind of
fill in all of the white grain and
smooth everything out and on the
shadowed areas now I'm using the raw
umber 50% just to smooth those areas out
so I don't use the same color to blend
all over I will use dark color to blend
out the shadows and I like to color for
the mid and highlighted areas and I'm
just adding some more shadow and
softening out that piece of hair down
there with the brown okay ten percent as
well which was basically like a cream
sort own you can go back in with lots of
different colors and glaze them over the
top until you get a color that you're
happy with
I recommend testing the colors that you
think you want to use first to see how
they work together whether you get the
result that you want especially if you
swatch the colors first then test out a
few colors to see what is the closest
match to that just like do a little test
with a piece of hair just like a little
lock of hair do your technique and then
you can apply it to the whole of the
head of hair so again going in with that
Brown okay just keep layering until you
get the saturation level that you want I
like
about this paper is that even though
it's smooth you could still get lots of
layers a lot of smooth paper it's hard
to get layers on but this one I really
like it I used the 500 series for this
but you don't need that one you can get
the 300 or 400 series which is slightly
cheaper but will still have the same
sort of finish because they're all play
and smooth surface anyway so what
basically doing is getting the
foundation established so all of the
colors are going to be established and
then I'll go in and out all of the
details with like a little exacto
crafting knife and I really like this
technique to pull up lots of individual
hairs which I'll show you in a bit
now I'm just going in with the raw umber
which is the darkest of the raw numbers
and I'm just using it to add some of
those more subtle shadows on that piece
of hair down there but we're nearly
finished with this bit of hair and we're
going to go in and add all of the little
details so finally what I'm doing is I'm
going in with the buff titanium or white
you can use white as well and I'm just
using it with a bit pressure just to
pull up some highlights and lighten up
certain clumps of hair and just little
strands here and there just to create
more contrast and just lighten up some
of the strands of hair so now I'm going
to go in and add all of the little
details like I sent earlier and this is
the little crafting knife that I'll be
using you can get them really cheap off
like Amazon and what I like to do is
just use it and I just scrape it down to
pull up some of the wax so how it works
is it basically scrapes off the wax
layers which means that you're revealing
a lighter color and lighter layers that
you were doing and so this gives the
nice impression of some really light
hairs and just adding details so I love
this technique for stuff like hair or
stubble or any little details that you
want to make lighter and as you can see
it works really well at getting some
extra details and flyaway hairs I love
using it for Flyway hairs because it's
hard to get flyaway hairs with like a
white color pencil but this makes it
just super easy and it will take a bit
of practice to get used to because you
need to make sure that you don't rip the
paper
so definitely just don't go straight in
on your like final piece and do this
just test it on a scrap piece of paper
first but it is quite an easy technique
to do you just need to get to grips with
how to hold the knife or angle to hold
out and also just basically how hard you
need to use it I'm just gonna do few
them throughout all of the hair it helps
just break up the clumps of hair as well
and stop it looking so uniformed on the
reference photo she did have a lot of
little flyaway hairs overlapping
everywhere so it's the little details
like this which really takes it to that
next level of realism just really focus
in on all of the little details so once
you have done that step with the
crafting knife it does make it harder to
go on top with your colored pencils so
this is really something that you want
to do for your last step but anyway guys
that is it for today's tutorial remember
to subscribe if you enjoyed this
tutorial and you want to see my other
ones that are coming up in this sort of
style of video as I have new tutorials
every single week and fun art videos as
well also if you guys over on my patreon
I've got this one and the other ones are
coming soon with the I knows and there's
also lots of other colored pencil
tutorials on there as well so make sure
you check that out anyway guys thank you
for watching and I will see you next
time
bye everyone