How to Add Detail to a Cartoon Characters' Hair

Hair helps define your cartoon character and adds a fun specificity that you can achieve with little effort. Detailing the hair requires that you strike a balance between leaving the hair general and undefined and making it overly detailed and busy. Follow these steps to learn how to add detail to a cartoon characters' hair.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Start with a general shape in order to provide a drawing framework for the hair's detail. The general outline of the hair should be fitting with your cartoon character's personality whether it's businesslike, zany or funky.

2. Add detail lines such as straight lines, zigzag lines or squiggling lines within the outline of the hair. You can also use letter shapes such as the letters C, Z and S to create the appearance of texture.

3. Add features like bangs, sideburns or hair that rises off of the head slightly in order to add a little more realism.

4. Shade the hair according to hair color by using dark shading for brown or black hair and very light, sparing shading for blonde hair. In both cases, leave white patches to represent direct contact with light.

5. Return to the outline to emphasize it with a darker line so the overall shape of the hair is more prominent than the details you add.