How I Draw Hair and More

Hey faeries!

I wanted to show you how I draw hair. It's not going to be a step-by-step... because I don't have a clear way of doing it. Maybe I'll think of a way someday. XD

Since I wasn't sure if I wanted to do a "how I draw hair" post or just "how I draw" in general, I took a bunch of pictures. So this post is going to be mostly pictures and not words. >.<

As always, I started with a circle. It's okay if it's not perfect, no one is going to see it anyway once it's finished. XD

I don't normally do this, but this time I drew a line in the middle of the face and a bit further to measure how long I wanted the chin to be.  

Remember girls have rounder/softer looking faces than guys do. And I'm drawing a girl, by the way. XD

Then I added shoulders and neck. Again, this is a rough base so it's okay if it is messy. :)

Drew the ears. Ears should be placed closer to jaw line, but not actually touching it. (I could be wrong here, I just normally do what I think looks right! Heh heh. :P)

Then I drew a simple hairline to go off of.  I struggle a little with hairlines sometimes. They matter more than I used to think. Depending on who you are drawing, if you get everything right but mess up on their hairline it won't look quite like who you were drawing. DX But don't stress about it! XDDD

Then I drew the basic hair outline. I'm drawing a curly haired girl, so I wanted to give her hair lots of body. I like adding a few strands at the end that curl in their own directions, I feel like it gives more character. (Sometimes I add strands of hair curling outward higher up in the hair, but I didn't this time.)

Then I drew the hair on the left side under her ear. In this artwork, I wanted to try drawing a girl with only one side of her hair over a shoulder, and I think I'm liking the way it turned out. :D

Then I added the bangs thing. XD I'm trying to see if I can draw them so they look like the stick off her forehead a little. (Does that make any sense? I guess I want it to look a little like the Little Mermaid's bangs, but not? XD Can't think of any way else to describe it, so. *shrugs*) 

Next, I shaded the hair. (I don't do that first usually. Most of the time, I fill in the main color of the hair and then shade. But this time I did differently, and I really liked it! <3 XD)

Then I shaded the bangs and left side. Another thing I did differently in this artwork, was making the shading have strands. You don't have to shade hair this way, you can just do simpler shapes...? I don't really know how to describe it. XD Like you ditch all the strandy things I did and do the main shaded areas.

I filled in the basic color I wanted for the girl's hair. And I smoothed the shaded parts into smaller points and stuff. 

The shiny parts are similar to the shaded ones, they're just in different locations. (I didn't add shinier areas for a long time in drawings, only recently have I done that; so if you don't feel comfortable doing that yet, you don't have to. It's helpfully to see where other people do it in drawings or look at your own hair and other people's hair in real life.)  

Then I shaded the girl's skin. 

This is my first time adding shinier areas to skin, so I'm not sure if it is anywhere near accurate. 

After that, I colored in the main skin tone.

And I kinda stopped taking pictures of each step of my drawing with the details. Because I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep the face the way I had going on, so yeah. 

I haven't done lips and noses like that before, but I think I like it...? XD

I didn't want to rush the end of this drawing so I don't have it done yet. But, when it is finished, I will post a picture of it!

Am I the only one that thinks this drawing somehow looks like a cross between a Splatoon character and Zendaya?

How to Draw: Makar

Hey guys!!! I feel like I haven't seen you in a while, even though it's only been a week! :O XD

I've been watching my bro play so much Breath of the Wild and he keeps finding these little tree people called Koroks that I wanted to draw one of them. Koroks are in a few Legend of Zelda games but Korok I want to show you how to draw isn't from Breath of the Wild...

I know I've done step-by-step's before, but I hadn't done it in the more traditional way. I'm not even sure if there is a "traditional" way, but hoo-dee-hoo-hoo. Don't ask aboot what I just said. I is hyper. This iz whut happenz when I write a blog post when I'z drank coffee recently. XDD

Here's the little guy that I'm showing you faeries how to draw. Makar's from the game called Wind Waker. :3 And Makar plays a violin for Link sometimes and Makar's little friends once "sang" for Link, it was su coot. XD He's rather adventurous for his small size. Which makes him all the more cuter. 

I thought I'd start with a simple circle because we all know how much I love starting my drawings that way. XD Hint: that's, like, how I start 'em all the time. 

And then you draw a rounded cone on top of the circle. :P

And Makar is tree-ish so then you add the twig things on his head, making one taller than the other. :P

And the taller on the two twigs on Makar's head has another teeny, tiny twig sticking out of it.

Now, we draw his arms. (I had a little more difficulty making sure they were the same size. A ruler was handy to have for that. XD) 

Makar's legs were also hard to get to be the same. (Thanks again, Mr. Ruler, for letting me use you. XDD) I also drew a little line in the middle of the first circle I drew so that I would know where the middle of body was. And then I can draw his legs to be the same size a little easier.

The two circles are for Makar's mask. :) His mask is not symmetrical so one circle is bigger than the other.  

And then you draw a few lines to connect the circles to become a leaf mask. Sorry, I didn't know of a way to make that part simpler.

Next, we're going to do the smaller details. Here's the line in the middle of a leaf. (Doesn't it make it look a little more leafy than before? XD)

Now you draw the rest of his mask. Which would be the eyes, the nose and the mouth. XDDD

Then you ink the lines you want to keep. :)

And erase!

Tada! There's my Makar step-by-step! What did you think?

Here's a picture of all the steps, just in case you want to save it. :)

- - -

I cannot believe I've forgotten so many times to say this. But, thank you all for requesting art last month! I will get to drawing them all soon. I hope to have them done by summer. I hope that not too long for you to wait. D: I will most likely get them done before then, but is a deadline for me just so I get them done. :P

What's your favorite video game?

How I Color - Part 2

Wow, I can't believe Christmas is coming so quickly! :O I'm so pumped for it, though! The family time will amazing. :D And getting to celebrate Jesus' birth has to be the best reason of them all to get excited. :)

And speaking of getting excited about Jesus' b-day. Here's a song for y'all.

I know it's VeggieTales, but who hasn't watched that as a kid??* XD And it's Owl City! I love his songs so much!

Ahem! Back to the main point of this post. :P

You guys remember what I posted about last week, right? (If you haven't read my last post, click here to read it. :P) Well, I promised I would show you this week how I had colored the background for the water sprite picture. So that's what happening today.** XD

*Okay, I'm sure some of you may have not watched that as a kid. I feel very sorry for you if you haven't, childhood just isn't the same without VeggieTales... XD

**As if it wasn't super easy to guess.

Here's the picture of how I left it off last week. It looks okay but a little strange with the white landscape around the sprite. :P By the end of this post it will look much better. XD

Sorry for the fuzzy picture!

Here I had just done the grass. I colored the grass lighter because I wanted the water sprite to be the main focus of the picture.*

*Teehee, that's a little tip I've learned from Rachel. :3 She has great posts on her blog, Manga Interest! Go check 'em out! 

Heh, this is another bad quality photo. I'm sorry! :(

It's really hard to tell in the picture, but I colored the water a greenish blue. Now I know rivers aren't normally that color, however, I felt like that would add too much blue if I colored it normally. You know with the blue sprite, blue river, and blue sky. XD So, yeah, that's why I did it. :P

I also used three colored pencils for the river. :3 One was tealish and the other two were a lighter blue and a darker blue.* XD

*I know my colors like a pro. XD

I colored the bark... brown. C: *crowd ooo's and ahh's over the "impressive" feat I have accomplished with one simple act of coloring a tree* XD 

And now the tree is a cherry tree because the flowers are pink.* :3 

*Ha! I bet you thought that cherry tree's flowers were leaves the whole time!!! Because they could definitely NOT pass as leaves! Pffft, no way, no how. Not even close. Ok, the flowers do look like leaves... :P

I just colored the mountains like normal gray mountains. Woot. :P

I colored the sky in this picture above but it is really faint on the photo. :P Oops. XD 

I had done the sky first with one really pale blue and gone over it again messily with a sky blue colored pencil to give it more..........................uh.................................um...............er................ texture? Does using the words texture and sky even work together??? It doesn't sound like it should. But... clouds make the sky look texture. Ish. :P 

*thinks it through*

You know what! Texture is not the right word for that at all. I think the word I'm looking for is depth. Yup! That word is perfect. XD 

Ah! Shading is next! I had fun doing the shading on the cherry tree even though it only needed a little bit. :)

I went a little willy-nilly with the shading of the river. XD It was a blast!

Now I've shaded all of the grass. :) I added little random patches of darker green so it would look more like real grass. I think it looks a better than most of the grass I've colored in other pictures.* :P

*That doesn't take much, though to look better than my other "grass." XD (Yesh, it was that bad. I can't even call it grass, it's "grass.")

I really, really like the way my mountains turned out in this drawing.* ^.^ 

*THANK YOU GOOGLE IMAGES. WITHOUT YOU I'D STILL BE DRAWING TRIANGLE MOUNTAINS WITH A WEE BIT OF SNOW ON THE TOP.

Ta-daaaaaaa!!!!!! Now I'm done the picture! What do you thinnnnnk? Do you like? XD Do you want to laminate it? So you can keep it???! Forever! And ever! And always! Amen. XD 

XD You don't have to like it that much. 

But I must say I think this is one of my favorites that I've done recently in my sketchbook. (The other most recent drawings are kinda meh to me. :/)

- - -

In this past week, I watched a fabulous movie with my siblings. I had never watched it before even though it has been out for quite some time. :P Wanna know what it is? :o 

It was Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides! It was amazing! And I didn't get confused with the plot! Yay me! XD 

And you know what the best thing about the movie was?

This edit was made by me and Lostfairy for exactly this reason: to be put on our blogs. XD

Yup. It was the cabin boy. Seriously, he was so cute. XD Yes. I can see he has the weirdest hair on earth and a adorable silly expression on his face in the picture (and in the whole movie). But... still. He's cute. 

And I may or may not I have watched Once Upon a Time season three where the "cabin boy" (Robbie Kay) was acting as Peter Pan. Which happens to be my favorite fairy-tale of all time. XD And in the TV show Robbie has better hair. XD

See? Much better hair! XD And fabulous eyebrows. XDD

Sorry for that random burst of boy craziness. XD I just had to say something about him. :P

And, as for the winner and runner-ups for the raffle, your artwork is almost done! I just have one more to draw at the time I'm writing this post. (By the time you read it, I hope to be done the picture. ^.^)

Anyway, I hope you all have a very merry Christmas! Come back here on Christmas Day to see the pictures I drew for the raffle winners! Because I will have them posted then! XD

How's your Christmas weekend going? I'm sure it's much better now that you've seen Robbie Kay, teehee. XD

How I Color - Part One

Faeries! It's time. It's the time of the week where I put out the post you've been waiting for all week!* XD 

I've been pretty busy lately with art-I-cannot-post-yet-because-siblings-read-my-posts... And, well, if I posted the art I'm giving to them that would be just totally ruining the surprise. And we wouldn't want that, now would we? XD

I did a step-by-step post earlier, like almost two months ago. And I felt like doing something like that again. :)

Except. There is a twist. I'm not showing you how I drew the art. I'm going to show you how I colored it. :D Today, though, I won't show how I colored the whole thing. I'm just going to show you how I colored the person on my picture. :3

*I have no I idea if you've been looking forward to my post that much. :P

Here's the picture before I colored it. :) I don't normally draw a chibi person with a background, but I felt like giving it a go. I also wanted to draw a chibi girl that didn't have a normal skin tone. :P So I drew a water sprite or water elf or something.* That way she could have blue skin. XD

About the background... When I draw trees by myself they look really deformed. >.< I looked up "simple cherry tree" or something on Google images and used one of the pictures as a base. :P Same with the mountains. XD So if you just can't seem to get something to look right, don't be afraid to use Google images! They are so helpful.

*I have no hot clue to what she exactly is. I first thought she was a water sprite but I looked it up (not the best idea :/ there are some scaryyyyyyy water sprites out there) and she does not really look like those. And then I looked up water elf and she isn't quite like that either. But I think I'll just call her a water sprite because that's what I intended her to be. XD Sorry, that was a bit long winded.

It doesn't really matter what you color first in your drawing, just as long as you start coloring! XD For this particular drawing, I went with the sprite's skin. I wanted everything else to match with her blue skin tone. 

What helps me find the perfect shade of color is blending two or more colored pencils together on a scrape piece of paper and then using the colors I liked best on my drawing. For coloring her skin, I started with a really pale, icy blue and then I went faintly over that with a light sky blue colored pencil. :) I'm not sure if you can tell, but on the picture above, I had already started with the second layer of color. But I'd only done the legs. :P

Now on to the hair! :D I used only one colored pencil for her hair. There really isn't much to say about how I colored it... Because it was so straight forward. :P Just color it. And boom. You're done. :P

I will mention, however, if you do color outside the lines with colored pencils, you can use a eraser to erase it. I use a pink eraser... But I'm not sure if that's the best idea. What is the best eraser for that type of thing? Hmm... Now I gotta look up which is the best color of eraser is for erasing colors.* :P

*types in search bar on Google "what color of eraser is best for erasing colored pencils*

*I'm not even sure it matters what the color is! XD

Um. What the ham and eggs is a kneaded eraser?! *clicks on the article* *skims it* Well, okay, by the looks of it... *reads more of the article* It's a eraser that is kinda like silly putty because you can make it into different shapes and stuff...? It's kind of weird but kind of cool... XD

Well, I'm still not sure what the best eraser for colored pencils is. But my pink eraser works just fine for me. :P

Anyway! Back to coloring!

I colored her dress next. Thanks to Tracey, who gave me the idea, I drew the water sprite wearing a lily pad inspired dress. So I colored it... Green! XD I used just one colored pencil again.

To make it more lily pad ish, I colored the flower on the sprite's dress pink. I used two different pinks for it to make it more realistic. :P

Next, I colored her eyes. I colored with two browns so the bottom of her eyes would be more noticeably lighter and the top darker. 

Shading is next for me. :D The key thing to remember about shading is where the light source is coming from in your drawing. I made mine coming from the top left. I kinda just guess and go a little willy-nilly with my shading, so mine may not be completely correct. :P 

In the picture, I used a darker shade of sky blue for shading her skin. And for the water sprite's hair, I used a much darker blue. You might not notice a lot but I even shaded the whites of the sprite's eyes. I like using a light gray for that. ^.^ 

This is the last step I'm showing you today. 

Earlier this year, a good friend of mine told me that manga/anime artists often use black for shading lots of their drawings. I was rather shocked when I heard that. I mean, wouldn't black totally ruin a color by making it totally black?* It turns out that using a black colored pencil doesn't do that. It really just darkens the base color you're shading. I've used black waaaaaay more now that I know it shades so nicely. I do my shading with a black colored pencil lightly, so it doesn't make it look too dark. 

I used my black colored pencil on the water sprite's dress. 

*On a side note, I was also a really inexperienced artist back then... So I didn't know much about art and coloring and other artsy things at are important. :P

- - -

And that's it I have for you faeries today. I think I'll do a step-by-step next Saturday about how I colored the background. :3 I hope you enjoyed the post! See you guys later! Merry Christmas!!!

How do YOU color your drawing? Did you enjoy reading about how I color things? Have you been busy getting ready for Christmas? I'd love to hear what you do for your Christmas traditions!