How to draw short hair with short sides

Many short haircuts have two lengths. On top the hair is long enough to lift and show texture; at the sides and back it is cut close, so the outline there follows the head and the drawing stays mostly plain paper. Draw the two parts differently: a tall, textured top, and short sides that end at clear edges around the ear and at the nape.

The figures are pencil plates of head 100 and head 22 from our head rotation library, pencil, which draws each head from one 3D head at 22.5-degree steps. Head 100 wears a short cut, longer on top and swept up at the front, close at the sides and back. Head 22 wears short tight curls that stop at a clean edge on the back of the head.

Head 100 at 0, 45, 90 and 180 degrees. On a phone the four run top to bottom in the same order.

1. Draw the head first

Block in the bald head: the ball of the cranium, the brow line, the ears, the jaw and the neck. With short sides the head's own shape shows through the hair, so a lopsided skull shows too. How to draw a bald head covers the shape you're drawing first.

2. Measure the top and the sides

Head 100 from the front and in profile. Front: the top of the hair, the hairline and the brow, with the hair at each side just above the ear. Profile: the top and bottom of the ear carried back, the end of the hair in front of the ear, and a line down from the highest point of the hair. On a phone the front view comes first.

From the front, start with the top. On head 100 the top of the hair sits a little higher above the hairline at the middle of the forehead than that hairline sits above the brow, about one and a tenth times the forehead's height. Then the sides: below the temples the outline drops almost straight down to the tops of the ears. Just above the ear, the hair beside the face is only about a tenth as wide as the face measured between the hair's inside edges.

In profile, use the ear. The highest point of the hair sits almost straight above the front of the ear, and from there the top runs forward and down to the swept-up front. In front of the ear the hair ends in a short sideburn, cut square about a third of the way down the ear. At the back the hair comes down close behind the ear and ends at the nape around the level of the bottom of the ear.

Those numbers belong to head 100. Take the same ones on your own reference: the height above the hairline against the forehead, the sides against the face, and the sideburn and the nape against the ear.

3. Draw the outline close at the sides

Draw the top as one mass first, rising from the hairline to its highest point and running back over the crown. Then bring the outline down the sides close to the head. From the front it falls nearly straight to the tops of the ears; in profile it follows the back of the skull down to the nape without a step.

The inside edge matters as much as the outside. On head 100 the hairline turns down at the temple to the sideburn, the back of the sideburn runs up toward the top of the ear, and a faint line comes down close behind the ear to the nape, so the whole ear shows. On a short cut these edges are crisp lines, since there is no length to soften them.

4. Stop the texture at an edge

Head 22 from three-quarters behind and from behind, with the top and bottom of the ears carried across the head and the lowest point of the curls marked on the back view. On a phone the three-quarter view comes first.

Head 22 shows the edge of the texture clearly. The curls cover the top and the back of the head and end in a rounded edge. Seen from behind, that edge dips lowest at the middle, about a third of the way down the ears, and rises to the tops of the ears at the sides. From three-quarters behind it arches up over the ear. Below the curls the plate is plain paper down to a faint line at the nape, about level with the bottoms of the ears.

On head 100 the texture is quieter: short curving strokes on top and at the front, a few long strokes down the sides from the front, and almost nothing on the back.

5. Keep the sides light

Leave the short sides and back mostly as plain paper, with the outline and the hair's edges doing the work. A few short strokes can show the direction of the hair, running back and down toward the nape. Put the darker, busier marks on top, where the hair has length. If you shade the drawing, give the sides a light, even tone, lighter than the top, so they read as short hair rather than skin.

Three things that go wrong

Sides as thick as the top. If the outline swells over the ears, the cut reads as grown out. Check the front: on head 100 the sides are about a tenth of the face's width.

Texture down to the neck. Curls or strokes carried past the edge erase the difference between the two lengths. End the texture at a clear edge, as head 22 does.

No edges around the ear. Without the square sideburn and the line behind the ear, short hair blurs into the skin, so draw both as clear lines.

Practice it

Copy head 100 at 0, 45, 90 and 180 degrees. Each time, draw the skull first, take the measurements, draw the top as one mass, then bring the sides down close. Then draw head 22 from behind and mark where the curls stop before you draw a single curl.

For other kinds of hair, how to draw short swept-up hair, how to draw short wavy hair, how to draw short curly hair, how to draw hair pulled back into a bun and how to draw a bob haircut measure the hair against the face and the ear in the same way, and how to draw a hairline places the edge where the hair meets the face. 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.