#by the end itll be a fully rendered thing hopefully

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Hello webnoir fans, ive lost control.

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How do you draw natural hair???? I can't find a solid reference that isn't just "draw individual strands" or "make blocks and nothing else"

omg thats a tricky question, tbh, anon!!! and also tbh this answer got longer than i expected... i dont rly have the Art Language to rly teach anything v well so uhh i just threw a bunch of stuff in here

ive never made a tutorial, and i dont rly have the time to do one atm, but HERE is a pretty decent one i see floating around from time to time, and HERE is one that loosely goes over some dos/donts of drawing black features, and mentions hair as well. theres a particular one i think is rly good that i cant find, unfortunately, but oh well

the first guide i linked gives a pretty neat rundown of a few things to keep in mind, namely:

texture types

hairline!!

lighting

colors/undertones

just like w straight hair, the first thing to consider is the hairline and HOW the hair falls, which may seem intimidating bc of the natural beautiful voluminousness of black hair, but rly isnt as hard as it seems. 

i think ppl are often intimidated by learning to draw curly hair out of this feeling that they have to render each strand/curl and flyaway, but when ur doing art youre trying to CONVEY something, not render a picture perfect image. you can translate the curl, volume, and texture of hair without fully rendering it, the same way that u can translate the swish and fall of straight hair without having to draw every single strand, but ya, you cant rly draw ‘blocks’ with no nuance or defining features and hope to communicate the same thing

it might be useful to kind of envision it as drawing layers. like, the way that you wear layers of lace and crinoline to give size and volume to a skirt. this applies for rly picturing most styles, but w curly hair in particular its a good way to imagine how/why the volume builds the way it does

this is just a scribble to illustrate my point lol, but u wanna get the shape and stuff down!! when its shorter, it sticks up into those cute, curly afros and bobs, and when its long it gets heavy and the curls tend to droop down more. btw, shrinkage refers 2 the way that ur hair shrinks up from the curls themselves, so keep that in mind when it comes to the hair length that youre drawing, also! if the girl i drew had wet hair, itd probs go to the middle/bottom of her shoulder blades, despite being shoulder length when curled

ur best tool is reference! look at pictures of black hair in different styles. its like, the most versatile hair in the world, u can curl it and shape it and braid it, hell, afro textured hair can be sculpted into just about anything, broaden ur scope of what you think black hair can be!!! and dont just draw sleek 4c ringlet curls and call it a day!! also, get more comfortable drawing the shape of a bald head, dont hide behind hair. itll help you draw all hair and features better, but especially will help w faded styles, braids, and of course shaved heads

reference doesnt have to just be pictures, tho, bc it can be hard to know where to start. look at how other BLACK artists draw black hair, and take note!! focus on what they thought needed to be included to get the point across, what silhouette the hairstyles have, where they draw curls, where they draw parts in the hair, how they highlight and what shapes they make. give braids and locs a try-- its not as hard as it might seem, but it takes practice to get it right!!

if u have a more realistic style, its def worth getting further into the nitty gritty of just how all of those curls come together, im just talking more about the shape and how it translates in a p basic way, especially since i have a more cartoony style afiowejaioej im also still learning!! 

im sure u have all seen asieybarbie’s stuff floating around on tumblr thru the years, and she is one of my Big Inspirations when it comes to drawing varied black hair AND skintones (which she has a tutorial about lol), and HERE is a little sketchpage she posted once that has a small variety of both. some are more rendered, while some are big blocks of color broken up by highlights and loose curls on the edges to define the shape of the hair, and note w the locs how u can see her scalp between the parts in her hair

if u have a simple or comic style u can still convey black hair, either as a block of shape w defining features, or by drawing out the texture of the curls and strands, like this

(first two are old, finished comics lol, and hey look 2 black wlw!!!!! tiger tiger is something ive been working my way thru, but is recent, ongoing, and cute and funny and inspiring lmao. notably tho none of these are black artists :c ive been out of the web comics game for a minute and tiger tiger is the first one ive read in a while lmao)

***its girlswithslingshots.com, made a typo!! 

also when i think mainstream comics, the first character w natural hair that comes to mind is my wife gwendolyn from saga who i couldnt not mention

on the left her curls are more rendered, its cover art, notice how the light hits the curls and the way that they curls end, which is simplified to the right image a lot of the time in the main body of the comic!

and idk ive said too much already, but hopefully that helps!! im just kind of rambling at this point lol, but research and reference and practice are rly the best thing, and looking at other art of respectfully portrayed black characters