How To Draw Hair In Adobe Illustrator

You'd remember that long hair was the hardest pilus to return... well that and curly hair, however I accept news for you. From my feel from vectoring hundreds of vector portraits, brusk hair has e'er been more than fourth dimension consuming and required more than precision.

The reason beingness is that long hair benefits from the weight of gravity pulling the hair downwards and it avoids many of the natural kinks in the hair that brusk pilus has.

I'll be using a stock image from PhotoDune (no longer available) in this tutorial. He's got fabulous wavy hair with a lot of shine in it. Use this image or i of your own for this tutorial.

While my new Tuts+ Form, Mastering Male person Vector Portraits, shows you how to render two unlike styles of short hair, it would exist good to meet another style of short hair rendered. And this is what I'm going to encompass today.

1. Create the Hair Base

With long hair, information technology's easy to create the base shape for the pilus as information technology doesn't tend to have many kinks and curls in information technology, which makes for a much simpler shape to create. However with curt hair and especially hair with a slight curl in it, the base shape is a lot more than circuitous.

The base of operations shape with pilus is mainly used to lay your strokes upon it and as a shape to create a clipping mask with. So the more than precise the base shape is, the better. That existence said, it'due south OK to deviate from it slightly if the hair is gratis flowing.

Step 1

Offset let'due south begin by creating the base shapes for the t-shirt and peel. These won't take any details added to them in this tutorial as we're focusing on the hair alone. I've used the Pen Tool (P) to create these shapes and kept them on their ain layers.

Pace 2

Using brushes you'll need to create from my start course, Vector Portraits for Beginners (this is a complimentary to view course!), use the triangle tapered brush to create 10pt strokes around the outside of the hair, where it doesn't overlap onto the skin.

Step three

Select these strokes and get to Object > Expand to catechumen the strokes into filled paths.

Step 4

So select all of those expanded strokes and use Pathfinder > Unite to create one shape.

Stride v

Utilise the Pen Tool (P) to create a shape which fills in the infinite between the expanded strokes and the residual of the hair.

Then select all of the shapes and employ Pathfinder > Unite to combine them all.

Step 6

At present we're not focusing on the hair which overlaps the face, don't worry about this, but utilize the base shape of the skin and Pathfinder > Minus Front to cut away the skin from this shape so you're left with the following:

Step vii

Repeat the initial steps to create the strokes over the front of the skin base, Expanding them and Uniting them with the rest of the hair base of operations. You'll be left with 1 complete hair base to work with.

2. Add together the Hair Strokes

Step 1

Now that the hair base of operations is consummate, we can showtime adding strokes to the hair. With the reference paradigm visible underneath, use the Paintbrush Tool (B) and a tapered brush at both ends to draw the strands of hair where you can meet shine in the hair.

Don't worry too much about getting all of the hair, this is just a guide to the direction of the hair and placement of whatever areas which stand up out. For instance, at the forepart of the hair, the pilus is longer and appears to be more than waved.

Pace two

With your guiding strokes now created, fill in the rest of the hair that it clearly visible. Underneath the hair isn't so visible as information technology's in shadow, so don't feel yous have to render this.

If you lot're confident enough, at this stage you lot can do abroad with the reference image and use the guiding strokes as the management the hair is flowing.

I've and then selected all the hair and reduced it's Opacity to 5%, Blending Mode Screen.

Step iii

Y'all may take noticed on the previous pace that the pilus crosses over the hair base. This is completely fine. We should be aiming to fill in the tips of these areas to create a consistent distribution of hair.

I'm going to tidy this up at present by duplicating the hair base and using it to create a Clipping Mask (Control-7).

3. Utilise Gradients to Create Shadow

Step 1

Even the darkest of hair will have shadow and darker areas of the hair. This tin either be from shadows cast past the face and hair itself, or even from darkened roots (either from being chemically treated or from exposure to sunlight).

I find the best and about consequent mode to add shadow, peculiarly at the root, is to employ transparent radial gradients. If you were to draw darker strokes in the root area, there would be areas which aren't as nighttime every bit they should be. Alternatively, over rendering an area may make your work look messy. So a transparent gradient can help create a smooth distribution of shadow in specific areas.

I've placed my initial shapes using the Pen Tool (P) and the Slope Tool (G). These are in the undersides of the hair.

Step 2

I then use the Pencil Tool (N) and the same theory to add shadows in the gaps of the strokes placed on the hair. This creates more depth to the pilus.

Of form when you're done with these shapes, Group them (Control-G) and add them to the previously created clipping mask group.

4. Create a More Natural Look

Step 1

Y'all could leave the hair how it is, but nosotros want it to await more vibrant and realistic. So using the tapered brush and a higher Opacity, add strokes to the peaks of the curls in the hair to add the impression of shine.

Retrieve to follow the direction of the hair to ensure it looks natural.

Stride 2

Now hair doesn't only naturally gather together in even clumps. These masses of hair are varied in size and depending on the light hit it, varying in colour.

And so with the tapered castor and the Paintbrush Tool (B), I'm going to add strokes underneath the hair base of operations with unlike shades of grey to create this effect.

Awesome Work, You lot're Done!

I hope yous enjoyed creating this wait and if you desire to explore other ways to render short hair, why not check out my new Tuts+ Course, Mastering Male person Vector Portraits.

Not but men accept brusque pilus, so it's worth checking out anyway if you're primarily focused on creating portraits of women. Bask and run into you next time!