Dantesgirl's Blog

Character Development Tips: Hair

February 16, 2010 at 5:11 pm (Character development tips.)

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, where for art thou, Rapunzel?

If you’re a rather inexperienced artist, the hair is the selling point of your character. If you’re quite monotonous when it comes to drawing faces, the hair can be the feature that distinguishes two characters between one another. In a way, hair is as unique as character building itself: there are magazines, websites and articles dedicated to the plethora of hairstyles that are out there.

So please, for the love of God, stop this insanity.

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I have no sense of fashion or hair style or whatever. However, no one can be so clueless about hair as to make the same mistake that I see recurring over and over and over again.

Tipped hair.

Here is a picture I found after a few seconds of Googling of a girl with tipped hair:

Pretty, isn’t she? Notice how the red tips compliment the colour of her hair and how smooth they are.

Now, let’s see how the  ‘dolling’ community are handling tipped hair.

No. No with a capital ‘N’. If you want your character to have tipped hair, follow these guidelines:

• Ensure that the tip colour compliments the hair colour. Black and red compliment one another, blue and white don’t.
• When you’re drawing hair in the first place, make sure it flows and is not rigid; these doll bases are the epitome of stiffness, which makes the hair even more comical.
• Because of how stiff base hair tends to be, I deeply recommend NOT using bases when trying to depict your original characters. Instead, here are some options:
  - If you’re a writer and not accustomed to drawing, why not give it a try? You WILL improve with time, trust me. Just make sure you reference images to get a better idea of facial stucture/anatomy before going freestyle.
  - If you’re dead-set on not drawing, why not commission an artist? They will capture your OC beautifully, PLUS you’re helping the artistic economy.
  - If you’re broke, why not request something from an artist who is accepting requests? There’s nothing more annoying than being bugged to take requests when it states that you’re not accepting them. Don’t get a reputation for yourself for the sake of fanart, please.

Now, here are some more hair tips:

• Rainbow hair/fur = instant reputation as a Mary Sue/Gary Stu artist. It doesn’t matter how amazingly-developed their backstory is or how well-balanced they are, the labels will come pouring in and you probably will be scorned at.
• Why not let hair be a part of your story? This is quite important if you’re a writer because it helps the reader visualise what the character looks like (as stated at the beginning). In some cases, it can also add depth to the character (an example being Niamh).
  Devil’s Precipice Examples
  - Niamh: Was very proud of her long, blonde hair until around puberty age. When her parents were late picking her up from school one day, two passing old women tuttered at her and began gossiping about how parents were stuck in the 60s and insisted that their little boys had to have long hair like ‘back in the day’. This tipped Niamh over the edge and forced her to cut her ponytail off. Now, her hair is short and frames her face very effeminately.
  - Alex: Has awful bed hair and makes either his mum or Mimi fix his hair in the morning. Niamh and Dylan use this as a way to mock Alex for being so incredibly lazy.
  - Mimi: Was teased at school for being a ginger kid. Around the age of eleven, her mother dyed it a fiery red to reflect her personality.
  - Dylan: Is a punk and wears his hair in spikes to reflect this.
  - Jack: Jack and Mimi got friendly with one another (which eventually became a relationship) after Jack visited Mimi’s mother’s hair salon because he wanted ‘cooler hair’.
• Give your characters a change once in a while! I’ve seen OCs that have the same hairstyle for around twenty-thirty years. That’s not very realistic, is it? Well, it could be for an unglamorous housewife, but it all depends on your character.

Thank you very much for reading, I hope you found this educational.

Note: The base/doll images used are for educational and demonstrative purposes only and is in no way, shape or form a personal attack against the creators – I simply found them. If you are one of the creators and you find this usage offensive, please let me know and I’ll take them down. However, I would also implore you to read this as a way of bettering your  OCs.