Hi there! I'm working with my mouse here, so bare with me hehe. First, what you were doing is exactly right! You need to make a giant blob with the overall shape of the hair and include the darkest gradient in it. Here I did black-ish to dark gray as a base layer for the hair. Then, you apply mid grays following random strands of hair to make texture. Since you are working traditionally, you can use an kneeded eraser and shape it oddly to get texture effect over your gradient. Lastly, you put in the brightest value in the hair and the pieces that stick out, to break the blob shape just a little bit. This can be achieved traditionally by erasing with a fine point. Hope this helps you! PS. as a curly haired woman, I love seeing people try to get it rightly drawn :)

I need help on: "how to deconstruct curly hair?" - Portraits - Community Driven Art Feedback Platform

rui simao · 2026-06-23T11:34:44.864Z

So I know this reference is not very practical to find actual chunks of hair, I tried 2 things essentially: -creating a big stain to give the idea of hair (did not work) -deconstructing the curls in a more simplified manner (did not work)

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I need help on: "how to deconstruct curly hair?"

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