In this step-by-step tutorial, I’ll show you how to draw curls in 7 easy steps! Grab a pencil, paper, and eraser, and follow along with me :)
Here are the tools I’m using, but you can use a regular school pencil (HB pencil) and any eraser of your choice.
Tools I Used:
3B Pencil
Blending Stump
Kneaded Eraser
Soft Tissue Paper
Canson Drawing Paper (If you want smooth drawings, look for paper labeled as “fine tooth” or smooth, but make sure it’s thick so you can work it)
Step 1: Draw Boundary Lines For Your Curls
Start by drawing a pair of vertical lines that taper at the bottom. These will serve as boundary lines for the hair. The tightness of each curl ring depends on how far apart these two lines are. You can experiment with that.
Step 2: Draw the Front Sections of Your Curl
Let’s shape the curl while keeping our strokes within the boundary lines. Draw thick sections of hair that are spaced well apart. Slant them all in one direction. At the bottom, draw the end of your lock of hair by tapering the hair to a point.
Step 3: Draw the Back Sections of Your Curl
To draw the back part of your curl, draw similar-looking sections of hair that are connected to the ends of the ones you just drew. The dotted lines in my example above show you the part where the hair is hidden from view (erase these before you shade).
Before we move on to the shading portion, make sure your curl has rounded corners instead of sharp corners like the example below:
Drawing your curl like this will make it look flat instead of spirally
Also, make sure to lighten your construction lines before shading so they don’t show through in the end.
Step 4: Add a Light Layer of Shading
You can erase the two vertical boundary lines before shading.
Grab your pencil and lightly shade one section of hair at a time, working from the outside in. Use the flat side of your pencil to avoid scratchy shading. We want to make the area going down the center of the curl appear lighter in value so it will look 3D. When you approach this lighter area of hair, flick your pencil up quickly to create a gradual change in value.
Once you’re done, you can blend your shading so it’s smooth, using any blending tool of your choice, such as a soft tissue or blending stump. Blend in the same direction you shaded.
Step 5: Add Strands of Hair to the Front Sections of Your Curl
Now we’re going to draw individual strands of hair over the top of our shading. Sharpen your pencil, using the tip to draw this time, and use more pressure to create darker lines. In each section of hair, start your stroke along the outside and flick your pencil in toward the middle.
Now that my drawing is darker, you can more clearly see the pattern of light and shadow – each section of hair is lightest down the center. The transition between light and dark values should be gradual unless you’re drawing wet or extremely shiny hair.
Step 6: Add Strands of Hair to the Back Sections of Your Curl
Let’s work on the back sections of our curl in the same way we did in step 5, using the tip of our pencil to create many individual strands of hair. To make our drawing look 3D, try to darken this section more than the front section.
Step 7: Add Final Details to Your Curl!
Once you’re done, check to see if you’d like to make any tweaks to your drawing. I added some stray hairs so my drawing looks more natural instead of rigid and predictable.
If you’d like to learn more about how to draw long curls, such as how to draw loose curls, changing the curl direction, or how to layer many curls on a head of hair for your character drawings, plus many more tips, please refer to my video tutorial below!
Video Tutorial: How to Draw Curls
Thanks for drawing with me! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on drawing realistic curly hair and hope you share it with your friends :)
Leave a comment down below if you have any questions!
Darlene created RFA In 2013 with the goal of sharing simple yet detailed drawing tutorials with other artists on the world wide web. She is a self taught pencil portrait artist and Youtuber.
Hey, I’m Darlene and in this tutorial, I’m going to explain the Loomis method for drawing the face/head from the side view. It took me a long time to understand and be able to draw the Loomis heads properly, so my goal with this tutorial is to make each step as easy to understand as possible and bridge any gaps. I also added some methods of my own.
This is part 2 in a 4 part series on drawing the Loomis heads. ** You do NOT need to go through the series in order**, but doing so will help you understand how to draw a face from any angle that you want. It’s a very useful skill to have for portrait artists!
Part 1 covered the head from the front and can be viewed via this link.
Drawing Tools
These are the tools I’m going to use. But feel free to use just a regular school pencil and eraser.
If you already went through Part 1 of the series, these steps will look quite familiar to you. If not, don’t worry, you can still draw a face from the side view using these detailed steps.
Important Note: Some text will be marked with an asterisk “*”, meant for those of you who are going through this series in order. The text here may not make sense for people following this series out of order.
Draw Construction Lines for a Head in the Side View
Start with a circle. Then draw a straight vertical and horizontal line through the very center. I’m using a colored pencil so the instructions don’t get too confusing, but pencil crayon isn’t easy to erase, so I would recommend you use your graphite pencil and sketch very lightly so you can erase the construction lines easily once you’re done.
* Since we’re drawing a head from the side now (facing to the left), the middle line that runs down the middle of the face is going to be located on the left side of our circle. The vertical line is now called the ear line.
Extend your middle line straight down, creating the front of the face.
Find Where the Facial Features Go
The horizontal line is called the brow line, since that is where the eyebrows will be drawn (but more on that later). To find where the rest of his facial features need to go, we’re going to split the ear line into 6 equal spaces. Use small tick marks.
The topmost tick will mark the hairline. The bottommost tick will mark the nose line.
The space between each facial feature should be equal. So to figure out where the chin line goes, take a measurement from brow to nose and add it below for the chin line. You should now have 4 facial feature lines that are spaced evenly apart.
The eyes are going to be located about 1/3 of the way down from the brow to nose. For the lips, make a line a little higher than the midway point between the nose and chin lines.
Draw the Final Construction Lines
Draw a circle that spans from the hair line to nose line to represent the flat side of his head (aka the side plane).
* Remember when we chopped off the sides of his head in the front view? This is what it looks like from the side.
To complete the head shape, draw the jawline which runs from the bottom of the side plane to the chin.
To draw his neck, let’s first make the head shape less circular, as I’ve done above.
To draw the back of his neck, align your pencil with the nose line and base of his cranium. Halfway between the front of his face to the ear line, draw the front part of his neck.
Let’s Draw his Facial Features from the Side… Finally!
Now that we’ve constructed the head shape and know where his facial features should go, let’s use these as guidelines to draw our details on top!
Let’s draw the ear between the brow line and nose line, placing it in the bottom right quadrant of the head. It’s actually slanted back instead of perfectly vertical, so draw a slant that looks like a forward slash “/” before we actually draw the ear.
I think the ear shape is kind of similar to an oval, so if you want to have a rough guideline to draw within, create a faint oval.
Using the slanted line and oval as loose guidelines, you can more easily draw an ear. You can follow the steps as pictured above to draw the ear. You can see that I’ve now switched to drawing with a graphite pencil. At this point, I usually draw darker to differentiate the drawing from my construction lines.
To learn how to draw and shade an ear with more detailed steps, please visit this tutorial.
To draw the brow bone and forehead, start your pencil stroke just below the brow line, creating a deep convex curve. Extend your pencil stroke upward to create the forehead. I gave him a forehead that slants inward, but you can make it steeper or have it jut outward if you prefer. Try not to follow the circle shape, otherwise, his head will look too round. Stop when you reach the hair line.
Below the brow, you can draw a light triangle (the simplified version of a nose to use as a guideline to draw a more detailed one). Experiment with different shapes to get the nose shape you prefer. The base of the triangle should rest along the nose line.
Use the triangle as a rough guide to draw a more detailed nose shape. I’ve provided some examples above. You can manipulate the triangle to get some very interesting nose shapes.
After you’ve drawn the nose bridge, tip, and septum, add the wing of his nose to the right side of the middle line (the vertical line that marks the front of his face). For the nostril, draw a slight curve between the tip and wing of his nose.
To learn how to shade a nose, check out this tutorial.
Time to draw his mouth. I’ve included some steps above, showing the order I recommend for drawing the mouth. On the lip line, without going too far past the wing of his nose, draw a small tick to mark the corner of his lips. Define the opening of the mouth by drawing a wavy line. Then draw the top and bottom lip, making sure they are drawn on the left side of the middle line (the vertical line that marks the front of his face).
To learn how to draw an underbite, overbite, or normal bite, visit this tutorial.
Below the lip, bring your pencil stroke out to create a round, full chin, instead of following the construction lines too closely.
Then use the construction lines to draw the neck, jawline, and the rest of his head shape in more detail. Don’t forget the adam’s apple along the front of his neck :) For his head shape, try to deviate slightly from the circular construction line. I’ve made it so the back of his head is a little pointy.
Let’s draw his eyebrow along the brow line. I like to align the eyebrow arch with the side plane (the small circle we drew within the largest circle)
To draw the eye, first, draw an imaginary line going up from the wing of his nose. We’ll draw his eye to the right of that.
When referencing the numbered steps in the image above, the red line marks the imaginary line drawn from the wing of his nose and the blue line marks the eye line.
Draw the eyelids using a shape similar to a rotated “V”, but more curved.
Then add the eyeball using a curved line.
The eyelid crease can be drawn using a curve that is similar to the shape of the top eyelid.
Add eyelashes if you would like.
How to Draw Hair from the Side View
Time to draw his hair! Start along the hair line and draw hair-like strokes toward the right to frame his forehead until you reach the side plane. If you want to draw a large forehead, draw above the hair line. For a small forehead, draw below the hair line. Follow the side plane down toward the eyebrow, but don’t get too close! Angle your stroke down toward the ear. When you get to the brow line, create his sideburn, and then end your stroke near the top of the ear.
Continue your stroke on the right side of his ear, working down the nape of his neck.
Looking at the head on the right in the image above, you’ll notice how the hair highlighted in red is close to his head in certain areas and further away in other areas. The closer the hair is to the head shape, the shorter the hair is and vice versa. Use this knowledge to design his hairstyle the way you want. I made his hair mostly short but gave it much volume at the top.
Once you’re happy with how the face/head looks, erase your faint construction lines (what I’ve drawn in blue pencil crayon). And that’s how you draw a head from the side view using the Loomis method. If you want to learn how to draw 3 more head positions, please navigate to those tutorials using the links below.
Darlene created RFA In 2013 with the goal of sharing simple yet detailed drawing tutorials with other artists on the world wide web. She is a self taught pencil portrait artist and Youtuber.
Hey, I’m Darlene and in this tutorial, I’m going to explain the Loomis method for drawing a face from the front view. It took me a long time to understand and be able to draw the Loomis heads properly, so my goal with this tutorial is to make each step as easy to understand as possible and bridge any gaps. I also added some methods of my own.
This method allows you to not only draw faces from the front view but also from ANY view that you want.
This is PART 1 in a 4 part series where I’ll show you step-by-step how to draw 4 different head positions.
Drawing Tools
These are the tools I’m going to use. Feel free to use a regular school pencil and eraser though.
How to Draw a Face from the Front View (Loomis Method)
Let’s start with the easiest angle. The front view. I’m using a colored pencil crayon for all the construction lines so you can still see the construction of the head after the drawing is complete. Keep in mind that pencil crayon cannot be erased easily, so if you’re following along, you might want to use just a regular graphite pencil for this construction process.
Draw Construction Lines for a Head in the Front View
The first step is to draw a circle. To do so, limit the movement in your fingers and wrist and instead, move your elbow and shoulder. Just hover over your sketchbook, creating circular motions. When the movement looks and feels right, lower your pencil to create a faint circle. It may take a few tries and that’s perfectly normal!
I’ve gone over my circle to make it dark so the instructions are more clear. But try to keep your construction lines very light.
The next step is to create a vertical line (called the middle line) and a horizontal line (called the brow line) that runs through the very center of your circle.
Since the side of the human head is more flat, let’s cut off the sides of our circle. To cut off just the right amount, split the vertical line (aka middle Line) into 6 equal spaces.
Draw a straight horizontal line through the top and bottom-most tick.
Where each horizontal line intersects with the circle, draw a straight vertical line:
You should now have a square within your circle.
I can’t easily erase pencil crayon, so for now, just imagine that the left and right sides of the circle are gone.
Determine Where each Facial Feature Goes
Extend the middle line down so we can mark where all his facial features go.
We already know where the eyebrows are going to go, so next, we’ll need to figure out the placement of the hairline, nose, and chin. In the process of cutting off the sides of our circle, we’ve actually created the hair line and nose line already.
For an average male face, all of these features will be spaced evenly apart, so to find the boundary of the chin, take a measurement from hair to brow OR brow to nose to find the distance between the nose and chin. Make a small tick to mark the spot:
Now we have 4 horizontal feature lines that are spaced evenly apart.
To complete our head shape, we’ll need to draw the jawline. Extend the sides of the head down a little and then taper your pencil stroke in toward the chin. You can adjust the chin width based on your preference. For older males, I like to make the chin very wide with sharper angles. For a younger male with softer features, I like to draw the chin more narrow and smooth out the corners.
Now we have a complete head shape!
But there are two more feature lines to draw – the eye line and lip line!
The eye line is located about 1/3 of the way down from brow to nose.
And then between the nose and chin, there’s the lip line. It looks like it’s halfway between the nose and chin, but it’s actually just a little closer to the nose.
Time to Draw the Actual Facial Features
Let’s start adding his features now! Now that we’ve constructed the head shape and know where each facial feature should go, let’s use these as guidelines to draw our details on top!
Draw his ears along the side of the head, positioned between the brow and nose.
It may help to think of the ear as a shape that resembles half of a heart ❤️.
Introducing the Skull and Planar Head
Drawing the rest of his facial features can be very intimidating. So before we actually draw any of them, it’s good to learn where each feature fits on the face, then we can worry about how to draw each one.
A good way to approach this is to first practice drawing the human skull because it helps us understand the structure beneath all that skin.
Study and draw the skull from all sorts of angles. There are many apps and online references you can use to study from.
You can also learn how to draw muscles of the face, which is covered in Andrew Loomis’ book.
Learning how to draw a planar head will also come in handy. It’s basically a blocky, simplified version of the head. When you practice drawing this, it helps you better visualize where the facial features go. And it will give you a better grasp of the subject in a 3-dimensional space, giving you an understanding of how to draw the subject from different angles, which will help you as you move on in this drawing series.
It takes some time to learn this, but if you put in the time, your drawing skills will level up dramatically.
You can go right ahead and actually draw the planar head over your drawing very lightly to block out the different sections from one another. There are many ways to draw a planar head, as you can tell from a quick Google search. The Loomis one is a little different from what I’m doing now.
I like to lightly sketch just the face section and ignore the rest of the head, but when you’re practicing it’s probably a good idea to draw the whole planar head.
Please refer to the book for more info on this.
I’ll walk you through the specific placement of each facial feature as I draw them. With the skull and planar head references, you can probably already vividly picture where the features go.
Along the brow line, let’s draw his eyebrows. Slant them up at the ends. Leave a little space between the tail of each eyebrow and the side of the head.
Use your planar head sketch as guidelines to help with drawing the nose. The nose should sit on the nose line and be balanced along the middle line that runs vertically down the face.
I won’t go into much detail on how to draw each individual facial feature because I have separate tutorials for each one already. Click here to find all my free facial feature tutorials.
To place the eyes, draw a vertical line from the wing of the nose all the way up to the eyeline. That marks the inner corner of each eye.
The width of each eye should be about the same width as the nose.
For each eye, you can draw a trapezoid-like shape, then round off the corners to create something that looks more like an eye.
Position his eyes right above the eyeline.
Add an eyelid crease above each eye – It’s just a line that roughly follows the eye shape.
To draw the lips, I’m going to use a different method from Andrew Loomis.
Where your lip line intersects with the middle line, draw a U-shaped curve. It can be pointy, shallow, wide, or long. To either side, draw the corners of the mouth using small ticks, then connect the dots creating a wavy line in the shape of your choice.
Draw the outline for his top lip, creating an M-like shape. The bottom lip is like a very wide and shallow U shape.
How wide should the mouth be? It’s up to you, but I like to draw it a little wider than the nose.
Let’s draw his cheeks next.
If you want to really define his cheeks but don’t know where to start, it helps to visualize his skull. Also, knowing where the cheekbones end will help you understand which areas you can hollow out.
For his jaw, use your construction lines as a rough guide, softening the harsh angles. I’m giving him a dimpled chin.
For his neck, draw it as thick as you’d like.
I’m using red here so you can clearly see what I’ve added since the last step
Let’s draw the outline for the top and sides of his head. Round off the sharp corners and make the sides of his head come out a little more than the blue construction lines.
How to Draw Hair in the Front View
To draw his hair, you can use the hair line as a reference point, which will give him a medium-sized forehead. Draw above or below the hair line to give him a larger or smaller forehead.
Where the hair line intersects with the vertical middle line, I’ve drawn a dip to give him what’s called a cowlick. The boundary of his hair along the two sides of his forehead angle in slightly toward his eyebrows and then out toward each ear.
You can leave it like this so he has a buzz cut (head pictured on the left) or give his hair some length and volume (head pictured on the right). To do that, first select where you want his hair parting line to be (where he parts his hair). The parting line is the transition point between where his hair sweeps left and right. Start drawing his hair from that point and give him any hairstyle you want. To give his hair more volume, draw it further away from his head.
Once you’re happy with how your drawing looks, erase the faint construction lines and that completes our head drawn from the front view!
We’re going to use the exact same method to draw the last 3 heads in PART 2-4 of this series, so you’re going to see the same patterns come up over and over again, but from different angles!
I hope you enjoyed this drawing tutorial! If your drawing didn’t turn out the way you wanted the first time, don’t give up. It takes some practice and some patience. You can do it!!
Use the links below to navigate through the rest of the tutorials in this series on drawing faces from any angle using the Loomis method.
Darlene created RFA In 2013 with the goal of sharing simple yet detailed drawing tutorials with other artists on the world wide web. She is a self taught pencil portrait artist and Youtuber.
