Need some help about drawing hair

[Aeri]

Hey guys,

I am new to this site I spent a lot of time on deviantArt hoping to find some people to talk about anime drawings and recieving honest critics, but after I realized that most people there just want to show off their own art I decided to look for something new - and I found you guys ;-)

I have a lot of problems drawing hair for my characters, and it always turns out looking weird.
I try to give the streaks a natural look by adding smooth curves. This always works out pretty well, but it still looks like somebody just took a stapler and pinned every single one to the head (which pretty much describes how I draw hair )

Do you have any suggestions how to improve that? I want to give it a more natural look, so you don't notice the single streaks so much.
This is the picture I am talking about: http://co0n.de/pics/anime.jpg

It's still WIP and the lines are not complete yet, so please don't mind the other mistakes!

Looking forward to your comments

PS: sorry for mistakes, english is not my native language!

[apples13]

turns out weird? could you give us some examples you want to imitate?

[Aeri]

ofc

http://adsontaicho.deviantart.com/ar...eart-327598026
http://l-a-b-o.deviantart.com/art/TR...BUNNY-57867946
http://pcmaniac88.deviantart.com/art...ards-147381744
http://atomixart.deviantart.com/art/...ring-145565682
http://atomixart.deviantart.com/art/...reak-199788558

See, it does looke like "Hair" and not like 20 Streaks put together to imitate it.
Hope you can understand better what I mean now.

[doghateburger]

Its just the placing of the curve and the line weight. The way yours looks flat is because you curve some of them too low, for example the right side, her hair bangs, the curve does not really wrap well with the head....if that makes any sense ._.

[Aeri]

What exactly do you mean by "too low"?
could you maybe mark the bangs you are talking about, so I can understand better?

[doghateburger]

Sure...I think this is what you are trying to achieve. I blue line it kinda...poorly OTL



hope you get the idea :C

[Aeri]

Hey there!

Thanks for your help, that's a great tip. I always thought of hair like very thin, paperlike material, so there was no real distance to the head
This helped me understand better, how to draw it ;-)

I tried it myself, using your sketch as a base: http://co0n.de/pics/anime.jpg
still working on it though

[apples13]

You are missing some core concepts.
Also hair would not be blowing that much on the drawing.
the missing hair actually flattens the image.
You really have to think of hair in terms of strands and not chunks.
FYI drawing more strands will help out the drawing.
on the right I illustrated what would your hair vs my hair would look like from the back if there was no wind.
yours is missing a bunch of hair.

[Aeri]

Hmm, now that you point it out, I see it too :-/ Maybe some accident while mowing the backyard?
I only did a rough sketch before vectorizing it, maybe I should have spent some more time thinking about it.
I will do a new scetch later and post it.

Thanks for your help

ps: I also noticed, you slightly moved the head to the left - is the head I drew not correct either, or did it have no reason?

[apples13]

i think i drew the head a little small, but I screwed up erasing your head and forgot where it ended up. I prefer drawing with a more curvy face that's why