How To Draw Realistic Black Hair - Polychromos Colour Pencil Tutorial

Today, i want to show you how to draw black hair and i'm going to show you the process that i go through when i'm drawing it. So, let's get started now. The first thing i've already done is just sketch out some rough outlines. I just did this with a 5h pencil very very lightly and then once i'd finished sketching it out. I also went lightly over the top of it with a putty eraser just so that they are extremely light, and what i want to do from here is start fitting down a base layer, so i want to start putting something down on the paper now i want To choose the lightest color that i can see within the section of hair, so that would be the lightest section i can see on the highlights and for this i'm going to use a very light, but cold gray, and all i want to do at this point - Is put down some smooth, even coverage? I don't need to worry about any of the hair texture right now, so i'm pressing very, very lightly and just working in circular motions so that i end up covering the whole of the area. This is going to show everywhere where i will be drawing the hair. It'S going to make the outline far clearer to me and just give me something to work off of now for this video i'm using polychromos and i'm working on bristol board i'll put links in the description of all of the materials that i'll be using. Now i do find it helps to have a nice sharp pencil as i'm doing this, and the general goal here is to gradually build up the hair. We don't want to be going in full force from the beginning. So that's why i'm starting off with such a light layer of pencil now from here. I want to gradually start working my way down through the colors and next i'm going to use a slightly darker cool gray, just to begin marking in some of the main shapes. I can see within the hair, so when you draw hair, you don't want to be drawing individual strands of hair. You want to be drawing the sections of the hair, so, for example, in this top section up here, there's a lighter patch on the right hand, side and it's darker on the left. So i'm not trying to get this as dark as the hair will be at the end. I'M just wanting to use this to begin marking out these areas. Now to do this. I am now trying to add in some hair texture to allow me to do this. I want to have, firstly, a nice sharp pencil again that is very, very important when you're drawing hair - and i just want to be brushing the pencil back and forth against the paper. Now i'm doing this very very lightly, and this will begin to build up that texture. I'M focusing a little bit more with this pencil on the lighter areas. Where will be the highlights on their hair and then i'm putting less on the areas that are going to be extremely dark? The more shadowed areas, because i am going to build that up with a number of other colors. Now, don't worry that it's looking very gray at the moment as we work our way through, it will end up looking like black hair with highlights so from here. I want to move on to the next darkest color, i'm going to use dark sepia here, and i just want to begin marking in a bit darker. All of these shapes and it's going to make the hair look much clearer, more obvious where the shadows are going to be so i'm still working in these flicking motions. I still want to be gradually pulling the pencil back and forth and i'm looking very closely here at the direction of the hair, because i'm drawing a slight curl, the hair doesn't all go straight down. It'S going in a number of different directions, so i want to be looking very closely at my reference to work out which directions they're going in, and this is really all still part of building up the template before we go anywhere near the black, where there are Lighter sections of hair, where the highlights are, i do want to be putting some of this color going lightly over the top of those highlights, because i don't want it to be a really abrupt edge to the highlights. I want them to kind of blend into the hair, otherwise they'll just look like odd light patches. So once they've gone over the whole of the hair and marked it all out, there is a few other things i want to do. First off. I want to add in some very light little baby hairs around the edge now hair doesn't all perfectly go in a uniform way. There'S always some little hair sticking out from the side. So all i want to be doing is very lightly. With my pencil pulling some flicks of the pencil out from the hair, generally speaking, i like to go in the rough direction of the hair, although i will do the odd one, that's going in a completely random direction, and this is already making it look a bit More natural, the other thing i'm going to do while i've got this pencil, is just try and deepen down some of the dark areas a little bit more. So i'm going over the top of these areas with a shading motion, so i'm going back to those circular motions that i used at the very beginning just to fill in any little white sections of the paper that i can see through here. I am still doing this very lightly and i will still be going over this with a darker color doing this doesn't remove the texture of the hair, though you can still see that through it is literally just filling in those white gaps from here. I want to make the hair look a little bit more interesting, so i'm actually going to use some blue here. I always like adding blue to black hair. I think it helps it to pop and you generally find that you can see quite a bit of it within the highlights of the hair, so i'm going to start off with this mid to dark blue. This is indian, three and blue, and i'm focusing mostly on going over the highlights. Now. I want to be doing this in the same way that i've been using the previous colors so flicking back and forth with the pencil just very, very lightly, to add a hint of this blue, but it is also adding more texture in these areas. I then want to move on to a much darker, blue and i'm going to use this under a lot of the areas where i'm going to use the black. So putting a dark blue underneath black makes the black look richer and more interesting. Although it does look a bit peculiar at the moment, don't worry about that, so i'm basically going about this in exactly the same way as i did when i use the dark sepia so flicking the pencil back and forth and going over all of these darker areas. I also want to be slightly bringing this blue into the edge of the highlight so that it's not an abrupt end again. You'Ll notice. At this point, it kind of looks like a funny color of gray hair, but that's okay, it'll all come together in a second. Now it's worth mentioning at this point that the reason that i used cool gray at the very beginning is because i did know that i was going to use the blue later on. So i generally wanted to stick to cooler colors throughout. It probably would work with a warm gray, but i personally think it goes better with a cool gray, if you can, if you have one so now, i've built up a decent amount of pencil on the paper and i've marked everything out so that i can see What i'm doing it's at this point? I want to start using the black, and i am going to use quite a bit for this hair. Now i'm going to start off in the same way as what i've already been doing so working in flicking motions and working lightly. But, as i work my way around, i do also want to be looking at if there's any areas that are completely black. So some of the shadowed areas are just very dark. Some of them have got completely solid black coverage or have the odd strip going through them. That is completely black. So, on the most part, i want to be working lightly, but i will press much firmer if i do see one of those very black areas, but i am going to start off by going through the whole area on the most part quite lightly, with the black And then, when i'm looking at the drawing as a whole, then i can go back over it firmer in any areas that i think need it now, similar to what i was doing before. I obviously don't want to be putting black all over the areas of highlight, but i do want to be picking some of the black and slightly putting it over the edge of these areas so that it kind of blends the darker areas into the lighter. And again, we don't have a really sharp line. Now before i move on and add more of this in, i once again want to go around the edge and add in any baby hairs. I'Ve already got some very light baby hairs. I just want to add a few here and there with the black as well, so that they're a bit darker, but as before i want to be doing this very lightly. I don't want really hard lines. I just want light little flicks with this color and, as you can see, it makes it look far more natural. So at this point i'm going to go through and really deepen down some of these areas. I would say that i'm not pressing full force, but i am using a medium to firm pressure, although on the most part i am still using flicking motions to do this just pressing harder, as i flick the pencil against the paper. So now it is starting to look like black hair. I feel like the highlights, are looking way too bright now, so i'm going to go back to my lighter blue and just add some more of this, particularly where the black meets the highlight so more around the edge of the highlight there is the odd highlight that I do want to stay very light, but on the most part i do want to deepen them down a little bit. I'M then going to go back in with the darker gray and again, avoiding all of the very light highlights the odd place where i do want it to stay very bright on all of the other areas, i'm just going to lightly shade over the top more. So this time with the smooth motion, so the smooth circular motion and again it's just deepening that down a bit so that it blends a bit better into the hair and then for the absolute lightest highlights i'm going to go in with the lightest gray, the one That i used at the very beginning and just blend that out going over the top of that pressing quite firmly now and i'm not so much using circular motions here, i'm also not using flicking motions, i'm kind of just going back and forth with the pencil in The direction of the hair pressing relatively firmly now putting gray over the top of what i've already had has made some areas a bit lighter than they were before. So some of the areas that i made very black are now looking more of a gray. So now i'm going to go back over all of these dark areas with the black to redefine them and really deepen them down all right and that's it as always. The real-time footage is available on my patreon. I also have loads of other tutorials covering a number of subjects. Every tutorial includes the reference photo swatches of all of the colors i'll be using as well as the sketch outlines check out the link in the description. If you enjoyed this video, give it a like and don't forget to click the subscribe and the notify bell. So you never miss an art tutorial, happy drawing guys i'll, see you in the next one.