The hair is so important in anime. Some characters are significant for their hairstyle, hair color, or both (e.g. Aya Fujimiya from Weiss Kreuz; everyone knows that he's a redhead and has two bangs on either sides of his face.), and anime/manga artist depend on the hair to add beauty and specific characteristics to their characters. However, there are some certain things you have to consider when drawing the hair of your hero or heroine.

  NOTE: everything about the hair (the details you're gonna see in this tutorial) is something that I've learned from other tutorials on the web; I'm just rewriting what I've understood in a different way (being honest here XD).

  Many people make mistakes on where to start the hair. Usually, and depending on the size of the face, the hair starts at certain points all around the face and behind. The picture to the right shows where the hair is likely to grow on the girl's head. Notice that none of the hair is drawn behind the red line.

  In anime, hair is drawn in the form of strands. These strands or locks of hair are usually more detailed at the end of the hair, and on the fore hair; there're even more of these strands at those spots. However, most anime artists nowadays depend on shading to give a more detailed look to their characters' hairs.
Strands depend on the hair type. A strait hair has strait strands that always fall downwards, and return to their place quickly if tossed away. In a curly hair, you'd find more strand than those of a straight hair, and those strand are curly, and so on. Here are different types of strand that you might see in anime.

  In anime, hair knows no sex. Long, ornamented hair can be used for men as well as women; and you can see women with short, spiky hair too. However, some men characters do need to have a long hair due to the era they live in (e.g. Heroic Legend of Arislan), but, in my humble opinion, some artists do exaggerate in hair lengths XD.

  Here are some examples of short and long hair; and since I'm not good at drawing guys, then this is a girl's territory. =p Sorry!

Short Hair

Long Hair

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