Etherington How to hair head shapes feature

Etherington Bros’ Comics Crash Course #2: Hair and head shapes

June 20, 2023

The Etherington Bros are well-known as one of the greatest teams of drawing teachers around — their How to Think When You Draw series of books, and their blog, have helped millions of artists learn how to draw essentially everything.

In addition to the free drawing tutorials on their blog, they’ve released a free ebook just for young, beginning artists — How to Think When You Draw Junior. You can download the entire ebook here for free, or read on to get a sample of one of the tutorials.

This mini-lesson is Part Two in a Five-Part series! Here are all five parts:

Lesson #2: How to draw hair and head shapes

It’s tempting to draw hair styles as lots of single hairs, because that’s what they’re made up of in real life! However, since comic hairstyles are vital for helping us recognize each individual character, try drawing the overall shape of the hair first.

Hair 1

As an exercise, just draw a bunch of circles and add hair shapes to them — the wilder the better. You can see how dramatically it will affect the character’s look, even when their head is just a circle.

Now that you have some hair style shapes, add in a few interior lines, thinking about the direction the hair grows. Draw a shape, think about the hair direction, and add some individual hair lines.

Hair 2

The character’s head shape will also help people recognize the character. Changing the shape of your character’s head, in particular their jaw, will totally alter their look.

You can also use the crossed lines you learned in the last tutorial to place your character’s features, just like you did with the round heads.

Shapes 1

Ready for practice? Here’s an exercise sheet. Feel free to download it, and then input it into your favorite drawing program. With your Wacom device, you can get started practicing digitally right away.

Shapes 2

First, draw a rough rectangle on a page, and fill it with as many different head shapes as you can, fitting shapes into every space.

Then, add faces to these shapes. Try to match the overall shape of the features to the shape of the head: a rounded face can have rounded features, and an angular face can have angular features.

Finally, for another drawing experiment, quickly sketch a set of similar faces on a piece of paper. Then draw the head shapes afterward, leaving space around them and playing with the position of the face on the head.


Remember, the entire PDF of How To Think When You Draw Junior is available here. You can also stay tuned to this blog, as we’ll be posting many more of these quick Comics tutorials.

Related posts:

How to draw more diverse body types

How to draw more diverse body types

How to use Wacom pen pressure for photo retouching in Adobe Photoshop, with Colin Smith

How to use Wacom pen pressure for photo retouching in Adobe Photoshop, with Colin Smith

July 30, 2024: How to create a visual autobiography in Adobe Photoshop

July 30, 2024: How to create a visual autobiography in Adobe Photoshop

July 25, 2024: How to design interesting shapes and objects with Kirk Wallace

July 25, 2024: How to design interesting shapes and objects with Kirk Wallace

Connect with Wacom on social media

#TBT to when @doughism took us #backtoschool 🍎✏️🗒️
#wacom #madewithwacom #wacombacktoschool #digitalpainting #characterdesign
112 1
Let's break down the character design process with @_jocelynshort tomorrow during Wacom Creativity Camp! Jocelyn is a fantasy, sci-fi and horror genre artist working in comics, video games and films. It's gonna be a fun-filled session, so don't miss it! Sign up for camp through the link in the bio ☝️
#wacomcreativitycamp #wacomedu #wacomforeducation #digitalart #characterdesign #madewithwacom
76 0
We were so excited to talk with Tomotaka Shibayama, director of the anime film My Oni Girl, currently available on Netflix 🎬💫

Join us while we chat with Tomotaka Shibayama about the display he used during the production, Wacom Cintiq Pro 16 ✍️

#MyOniGirl #CintiqPro16
94 0
We hope you channel the power and energy in this beautiful @wenjun.lin creation ☁️🌬️⁣
#madewithwacom #Digital2D #Illustration #Anime #Manga #CharacterDesign⁣
583 2
@dokomi_expo was a BLAST ❤️ We are already missing the inspiring vibes from our Otaku community 💫

We really enjoyed meeting you and sharing thoughts at the event 😎

Now, here’s a question for the comments section: With what MANGA character will you swap jobs? 👇

#WacomAtDokomi #Domoki2024
168 2
Wacom Adventures with @lplucas 🥸☁️☁️☁️☁️⁣
Here are 3 ways to draw clouds as a pro artist in #ClipStudioPaint⁣
@clipstudioofficial @graphixly✌️⁣
#MadeWithWacom #DrawingTips #DigitalArt #illustration #artistsoninstagram #digitaldrawing #cloudart #WacomCreativityCamp
104119 185
Let's go "camping" with @lukeymcgarry this week at Wacom Creativity Camp! During this virtual campfire of sorts, Luke will walk us through his creative process, share art tips, talk about his favorite tools and shortcuts to make his comics, and tell us all about how to stay creative while also avoiding the sun this season. ☀️☀️☀️☀️
Join us July 11 at 4:30 PST. 
Sign up for camp through the link in bio ☝️
#wacomcreativitycamp #wacomedu #wacomforeducation #digitalart #freewebinar #madewithwacom
97 0
Learn to draw a manga page from scratch with @whytmanga during Wacom Creativity Camp on July 9th. Odunze will  show how to go from idea to execution, covering all necessary steps and a few special personal tips to save time and level up your game on Clip Studio Paint. 
Sign up for camp via the link in bio ☝️
#wacomcreativitycamp #wacomedu #wacomforeducation #digitalart #freewebinar #manga #madewithwacom
174 0
Artists when no one is watching. 🙈🥸⁣
Thank you @lplucas, for making us all feel seen. ⁣
#artistsofinstagram #artistlife
8886 141
This error message is only visible to WordPress admins
Error: Connected account for the user wacom does not have permission to use this feed type.