How to draw hair pulled back into a bun
Archive of Fine Arts
Hair pulled back into a bun is two shapes. The hair over the skull is pulled tight, so it adds almost nothing to the head's outline. The bun is a separate mass behind the skull, with its own size and its own place. A drawing of a bun goes wrong when it loses one of those two: the hair gets drawn thick, like loose hair, or the bun ends up too small and too high, stuck on the head like a ball.
The figures are pencil plates from our head rotation library, pencil, which draws each head from one 3D head at 22.5-degree steps. Three of its heads wear a low bun and are measured below; a fourth, head 19, wears one higher.
1. Draw the skull, then the hair tight against it
Start with the bald head: the ball of the cranium, the brow line, the ears, the jaw. How to draw a bald head covers that shape.
Pulled-back hair follows the skull closely. On head 40 the faint construction circle still shows inside the hair in profile, and the hair's outline runs only about a sixteenth of the ear's height outside it, at the top and at the back alike. Compare that with short curly hair, which stands off the top of the skull by about a quarter of the ear's height. If your outline sits well outside the skull, the hair will read as loose, and the bun will look added on.
2. Show which way the hair is pulled
A few long lines carry the direction of the pull. On heads 106 and 54 they start at the hairline and run back over the skull toward the bun, curving with the head, so aim them at the bun. At 135 degrees, on head 106, they bend down over the back of the skull into the top of the bun.
Keep them few and long: the plates put three or four on the side of the head and leave the rest of the skull as plain paper. Because the hair is pulled back, the whole hairline shows, so draw it with care: across the forehead, down at the temples, to the front of the ear. How to draw a hairline places it.
3. Place the bun against the ear
In profile, use the ear as the ruler for the bun, as the red lines do. On all three heads:
- The top of the bun is level with the top of the ear, or a little above it. Head 40's sits highest, about a sixth of the ear's height above.
- The bun is taller than the ear, between one and a third and a little over one and a half times its height, with head 54's the tallest.
- So the bottom of the bun hangs below the earlobe, by a quarter to a half of the ear's height.
Those three are low buns, worn at the back of the head. Head 19 wears its bun higher: its top sits about three quarters of the ear's height above the ear, and its bottom ends above the lobe. A higher bun changes all three measurements, so measure the bun against the ear on your own reference before you draw it.
Draw the bun as a ball or a short, thick roll that sits against the back of the skull. Where the skull's outline meets the top of the bun, it turns a corner; all three profiles show this small step, so the head and the bun read as two shapes, where a smooth line flowing from the skull into the bun would make them one lump.
4. Connect the nape to the bun
Below the bun the hair is gathered up from the nape. Between the ear and the bun, the plates of heads 54 and 40 use a few short, curved strokes that run back from behind the ear and up into the underside of the bun. Head 106 uses a few longer lines in the same direction. These strokes tie the bun to the head.
Inside the bun, one or two curves that follow its round are enough to suggest the hair wrapped around it. On heads 106 and 40 a smaller arc sits inside the bun's outline, set toward the face.
5. Turn the head
The bun's place changes the most as the head turns, so check it in each view of the figure at the top:
- From the front, a low bun is hidden behind the head, so on head 106 nothing in the outline shows it is there.
- At 45 degrees, the bun shows as a bump beyond the back of the skull, at the height of the ear.
- In profile, it is fully in view behind the skull.
- At 135 degrees, it is a wide roll, wider than it is tall, and the ear is still level with its top.
- From directly behind, in the library's 180-degree plates (not shown here), the buns of heads 40 and 54 are bands nearly as wide as the head.
Three-quarter back and how to draw the head from the back cover the rest of the head in those views.
Three things that go wrong
A bun that's too small and too high. It looks like a ball stuck on the head. Measure its height against the ear, and start its top level with the ear's top.
Hair drawn as loose hair. A thick, wavy outline around the skull says the hair is down. Keep the outline close to the skull, and let the bun carry the volume.
No corner where the bun meets the head. One smooth outline running from the crown around the bun to the neck makes the head and the bun into one shape. Keep a visible step at the top of the bun, as all three plates do.
Practice it
Copy head 106 at 0, 45, 90 and 135 degrees, drawing the skull first each time and carrying the ear's top and bottom back across the bun before you draw it. Then draw head 54 or 40 in profile, measure its bun, and compare it with 106.
The head rotation library, pencil has 110 heads drawn in pencil at 22.5-degree steps, with a range of hair, short and long, straight, curly and tied back.
This guide is one step in how to draw the head at any angle, which puts all the head guides in order.