Curly Hair...

[Nicotine]

This sounds silly to ask, but can anyone help me to draw curly hair? Like this:
http://www.nijikon.net/oh_my_eyes/utgm02.jpg

I can never get curls down correctly, I've tried looking at pictures like that and copying the curls but it just doesn't work for me. Does anyone one know a step-by-step way I can do it? Or some tips to help? Thanks -_-.

[Mvmarcz]

those look like just making coils and putting arching lines in the coils

but I draw curly hair differently..very frizzy

[Faub]

I suggest tracing those curls to see how they did it then try to reproduce the style on your own. Seriously, print that out and put a piece of tracing paper over top. Repeat until it looks right to you.

[Jackhass]

[Points to avatar]...look at that amazingly rendered curly hair on the sheep.

[Cope]

Curls, clouds....they may as well be one and the same to men such as we.

[Bluebug]

The key to learning how to draw most things is to break them down into their component parts (ie. geometric shapes). The basic shapes used in curly hair are cylinders. Curly hair is tough to achieve, but as long as you start to visualize the basic shapes, you're halfway there.



The other trick to drawing curly hair is to understand how all those cylinders work in conjunction with each other. You'll notice the picture that you used as an example looks a lot more natural than my versions. That's because the cylinders don't all follow a straight line. The cylinders in each "strand" of hair are at varying angles, giving the hair a more natural look. In order to understand how all the cylinders attach together to make one strand of hair, it's easiest to think of how a curled ribbon would look (my first example is an illustration of this ribbon effect).

If you need to, get a ribbon, curl it and fiddle with it while you're drawing. It'll give you a better idea of the 3D relationship of the curls.

Best of luck!

edit: looks at Cope's post ... sheesh ... men!

[Nicotine]

^ Thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for!