<<Drawing the Eye
Drawing Hair Around the Eye
Step 11
If you haven’t read the previous tutorial on the technique on drawing hair, i recommend that you read it. It will help you understand the technique and will help you put it into better practice in this tutorial. I’ll explain it step by step, but if you know what im talking about it will be much easier. You can start off by reading this tutorial on drawing hair. Let’s move on.
Take your stylus and start indenting on the area under the eye. Indent from top right to bottom left and make sure that you randomly crisscross them. Make some shorter than others. Each indentation would be a hair or clump of hair. If you look at the reference image you will see that the hairs overlap and are different in length. That’s what we’re going for using this technique. Don’t make them straight either, give them a slight curve to each side, this makes it much more natural looking. Take your needle stylus and add some fine indentations to the ends. This will suggest finer hairs and that the tips of the hairs are finer. Now take your progresso pencil and you will outline the edge, revealing the hair. Don’t press too hard with the pencil or else you will get pencil into the indentations. Using this same technique you will do the same to the area above the eye. The area above the eye will have much longer hair so make sure that the indentations are a bit longer and that the ends are spread out at top. Again add some finer lines at the top to get the illusion of finger hairs. Outline the area with your 4b progresso pencil to bring out the tips. Notice that some lines are longer that others, this gives it a touch of realism by suggesting longer hairs.
Step 12
Step 13
Take your empty pen stylus and you will now begin indenting the hair to the right of the eye, The flow of the hair in this section runs up. You can always look at the finished drawing to see which way to indent. Its still the same technique as the previous steps except that its going in a different direction and the strokes will be a bit longer since the hair is longer. 
Again, make sure to overlap the indentations and to not make them all straight or else it will look unnatural and stiff. Once you have finished indenting you can add finer hairs by using the needle stylus. This will mix both finer and ticker hairs giving you a more natural look. With time you will understand how hair flows and how it behaves and you will know where to add these indentations.
Do the same thing to the area above the dark outline that we made above. You are now indenting all the layers of hair that are above the eye. Until you reach the top. The outline that you see in the top left corner is end of another layer. Hopefully that doesn’t confuse you, but you have to imagine the tips of the layer below overlapping the beginning of the next layer above. The direction that the hair flows in this section is to the top left, so make the indentations in that direction. But make sure that they curve and that they are random. Finish off by adding a few finer lines with the needle styles to the ends of each layer.
You will now add some long hairs that are over the eye, kind of like whiskers. The green and red lines on the left image, indicates where you will be adding the long hairs using the empty pen stylus. Make sure to indent in a fast motion so you get a nice smooth line. If you try to make it slow it will be hard to indent smoothly. Once you have made them you can make them thicker by running the pen slowly over the line. Remember that this is above the rest of the hair, so it was done after the other hair was indented. You could have made these hairs first and then create the other, but then you would have had to indent them again to bring them back up. There will be situations where you will have to do this, but its not something that will cause problems. And just like that , you now have long whiskers. Start to blend the edges of the hair that is just below the eyes, you are just blending the edges and using your 2h pencil make some shadows on the white hairs. Remember, the indentations will are the hairs and anything that doesn’t get indented will be the shadows that these hairs make. On white hair the trick is to fill in a couple of these shadows to give the illusion of hairs clumping together which makes shadows. You will get the hang of it as you understand how hair grows and by practicing. If you could see how many sheets of paper i have covered with indentations, used to practice and experiment. Do the same and you will be amazed at what you can learn.
Step 14
Take your 4b progresso pencil and start to fill in the area above the “eyebrow”, the area that is under the long whiskers that you made in the last step. This area will be a dark a stripe. Cover the area up to where i have it outlined it. Don’t press too hard or else you will get some graphite on the long hairs. If you do get some on, just erase by making a fine edge with your kneaded eraser and tapping along the hair. To darken the edges, blend with the color shaper, its amazing for blending the indentations. It gets graphite into the grooves and blends nicely into the dark areas.
I’m going to leave it like this, I’ve explained all the techniques necessary for you to finish the whole drawing yourself. Yup, I’m gonna make you work. i want you to put some of the techniques that you have learned into practice. Look at my finished drawing and other photographs for reference and go for it. The point of these tutorials is not to get the drawings to look perfect the first time, but for you to understand the techniques so that with practice you can slowly improve your drawings.
FINAL TIP:
Hair Clumps: Looking at the reference image you will notice that hair clump up and create what looks like thicker hairs. How do you get this effect? Well once you have darkened the hair. You take your kneaded eraser and you tap along a couple of indentations that are close together. By doing this you are removing the shadows between them and therefore creating clumps. To bring them out even more, you outline them using your mechanical pencil. This outline will be the shadow being cast by this clump of hair. On my final drawing, you can see these on the hair that is on the bottom left corner.
If you are having problems just leave a comment and i will reply to help you out. Once you finish, you can send me a picture of your work. I’ll be adding a members gallery with drawings that members have made. One last thing, If you find these tutorials helpful please share them using the sharethis button below. Enjoy and keep on drawing.
(53 votes, average: 4.89 out of 5)
Loading ...Pages: 1 2
Trackback URL || 
Permalink
August 19th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Thank you very much for another great tutorial! I have just started my first attempt at your hair technique on a wolf drawing and I have a few questions. I was unable to achieve bright white hair but I think you just answered how to do that in this tutorial. I am also having difficulty understanding the length and flow of the hair but I think that will get better with practice. My final question is about how to draw the very fine short hairs on the wolfs snout. I am completly lost on how to do it and I dont know how to begin. I have taken a photo of my progress and If you have time I would really appreciate your guidance and critic.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/Malleu…
my reference picture: http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/Malleu…
thanks.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Wow youre really doing great witht he hair, the texture is beautiful and you've captured that intense look that wolves have. When working with longer hair, the technique is basically the same as with short. The only difference is that the strokes to make the indentations are longer. Practice on a separate piece of sheet to get a feeling of drawing longer hair, make it random. I'll post a short video demonstrating how to go about drawing longer hair. As for the snout, its basically the same as the rest of the hair on the head. Its a bit shorter so you have to make the indentations shorter. In my wolf drawing i drew that section the same way as the rest of the hair. Look at this picture, <a href="http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/3315/dognosexb0.jpg">http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/3315/dognose…</a>, look at the flow of the hair, it fans out from the middle out. In your reference photo you'll be able to see only the part where the hair is already flowing down the side of the snout. This is a closeup of the snout in my wolf drawing, <a href="http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/1816/snoutso0.jpg">http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/1816/snoutso…</a>, i did this one about 4 years ago. I would have added much more detail now, but it shows the technique that you should use and build on the shadows from there. Well if you have any other questions just comment. Keep up the good work, the drawing is looking awesome
September 12th, 2008 at 4:59 am
Your drawing lessons are stunning – Great Work
September 17th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I thought this was very good it is quite hard for beginers but it truly captures a tigers eye.
November 10th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW…that's all i have to say
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:38 am
Wov..Nice tutorial…Thanks a lot.
Need some info….am not able to find a Kneaded Eraser …is their any other alernative for it ?
December 9th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Hi thanks you very much for your tutorial, i just like to draw and i'm folowwing all your tutorails. they are awesome!
this is what i got so far.. is not the best, but is not finished.
I can't make it more real lol, i tried is my first drawing folowwing your tutorials, what do you think should I do to improve my drawing?
http://img389.imageshack.us/my.php?image=epson0…
I'll keep practicing!
thanks for the tutorial!
December 13th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Great drawing my friend ( Im old and only hope to someday be able to draw like you do. Oncee again, youre GREAT. Good job
December 19th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
thanks for answering :S
December 27th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
amazing i enjoyed all of it well done you are a proper artist
February 7th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Thanks!
It did really help! My only problem is that I don't have the thing that fix the white draws… Got to find it somewhere (ordering it from USA cost so much, living in Sweden…)
February 8th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Hi, I really like your tutorials, they are wonderful & help a lot. I have personally gone through almost all the tutorials & i must say that they have helped me a great deal. Though i am new to your website but i am now completely glued to it. Thanks for this wonderful website which helps people like us undersatnd & learn drawing & various techniques associated.
I was trying to get info about ” how to draw white hair”, negative drawing but i am not able to get that. I would really appreciate if you can guide me & help me thorugh this paricular subject.
Thanks & Regards
March 14th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
wow that is AWSOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I could draw like that
March 25th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
dude thats cool im like a good artist i just cant do people drawings only like animals im in 9 grade and im 14 years old i can di shading really good but not that good i can barley draw eyes but people say they look good and i just wantto learn more thanks for that lesson i really needed it . 03/25/09
March 28th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Hi! i loooove this tutorial ! I've been wanting to learn how to draw realistic animals for so long and with this I actually managed to draw a half decent tiger eye even though i dont have all the tools (so proud of myself btw).
I see you have the link to drawing hair around the tiger eye under the tutorial but when I click on it, all I get is the same eyes tutorial ? Am I just not getting something (wouldnt be the first) or is tehre a problem with te link maybe ?
thanks for the amazing tutorial again!
April 5th, 2009 at 6:09 am
I really enjoyed this Its a great way to learn how to draw for beginners. but were in the ears and the last of the heard ?
April 8th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
I will be adding the rest of the tutorials. I want to add video tutorials but i need to get the camera first. Hopefully there are enough people that can help out so i can begin adding these tutorials. Im sure they will greatly compliment the written tutorials and will make it much easier to learn the techniques. Well take care and thank you.
June 8th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Great tutorial! It's so true, observation is the key! I remember the moment I realized that eyelashes sometimes grow towards the nose at the inner corners of the eye, what a revelation, haha! Such a tiny thing, but it made a world of difference in my portraits!
June 10th, 2009 at 1:24 am
weird but cool lol i cant do this but thanks anyways XD XD XD XD XD XD XD XD
June 16th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Hello, Lisandro!
Thank you very much for a wonderful lesson! Always wanted to try to paint animals. But was afraid to even begin. Especially frightening to draw hair. Especially frightening to draw hair. This is my first job …
http://efarova.com/pencil/tiger.jpg
Thank you again!
P.S. Sorry for my english…
July 1st, 2009 at 5:50 pm
this is amazing! I wanna be able to do this when i'm older (being only in 8th grade) and this helped a lot. THANKS!
July 24th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
hi my name is jeremy price and i have beeen drawing for 20 years.then one day i stumble across you and this web site by chance.the way i have been drawing is good and fun for me.i saw your tiger cub and had never drawn the way you do and man can you draw.i started trying your style of drawing and its very exsiting to me its fun for me i find it easyer then what i have been doing fore along time and i am now learning how to daw all over agian and for that i thank you.
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I drewit
its not as good as your'sbut its pretty amazing.
September 18th, 2009 at 2:48 am
What is the point of copying life with art I am getting into art but i just don't see the point of it unless i am expressing something meaningful, i mean an eye is great but why copy real life with art? I just don't get it. I think maybe i more into the surreal kind of things. I don't know.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Just stumbled upon this tutorial, and it looks to be great, can't wait to play with it. Thanks for the wonderful resource.
November 8th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Wow this is good. I'm practicing drawing wolf eyes right now, haven't uploaded any to the computer yet. It will take lots of patience for me (ugh) but hopefully I will be able to draw as good as this.
December 4th, 2009 at 3:22 am
Hi i'm just a guest but I looked ALL over and this is one of the only good, non-computer version I found Thankyou so much I'm in 6th grade and I understand this
December 31st, 2009 at 8:46 am
That is amazing and beautiful, for some reason eyes are the one thing I CAN draw well, now drawing a whole face is a different story, but perhaps I will be able to someday, I love this tutorial! Love it, thanks so much! Louella
January 4th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Your drawings are good, but the eye is the easy part. You should have a step-by-step for fur texture. The eye is simple people! Don't be fooled.
January 7th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Great tutorial and easy to follow. Wanted to say thanks for the hair tutorial in particular good work. However if i could make a suggestion for this drawing it would be to make the eye slightly larger as it is what the viewers eye is drawn to and more emphesis on this aspect of the picture would not be a bad thing. Also be sure to have your pupils be more vertically slanted for your cats as it is one of their eyes are one of their most captivating features. Overall great work though and thanks for the help.
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:29 pm
i really like ur work, i draw but i was unware of so many thing u mentioned. ur great thank u!!!!!!!
April 20th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I want to own a progressto pencil too.Is there another call for this type of pencil by any chance?(I don't find one currently…)
December 13th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Great life-like eye!
December 21st, 2010 at 9:32 pm
awsome
January 30th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
i saw a pencil drawing by a young artist ounce that was awsome , it was a tiger lying calmly stalking its prey with the focus on his eyes. but in it eyes there was a pic of its prey, all pencil
February 1st, 2011 at 4:53 am
superb……………………………………………………….
February 9th, 2011 at 8:03 pm
It was very helpful! I am trying to win an art contest at my shcool, to get a portrait of one of my pictures into an art musuem. I thought that A tiger was a great animal for many reasons, and this tutorial helped me aa great deal. The eyes are the most improtant part, and you just captured that here! THANKS so much
-Casey
February 16th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
Hey there!
I wanted to send u a picture of the lesson and it just dont work. I registered here and i wanted to check into "Drawing Gallery" but i cant.
How can i sent u the picture?
Please, i need some help here.
Stephanie
March 11th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
look mami i drew this u have to see it!!!!!!! when do u get home mom????
LOVE,
ORIANA
March 20th, 2011 at 2:32 am
have your pupils be more vertically slanted for your cats as it is one of their eyes are one of their most captivating features. Overall great work though and thanks for the help.
March 20th, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Hi
I'm 12 years old, and this draw tutorial is really helpful!
thanks a lot!
The fur is still a little bit difficult, but its something…
March 20th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
this tutorial is amazing. Im in 6th grade, trying to win an art contest in my school. I only have a #2 pencil, kneaded eraser, and the mechanical pencil, the empty pen stylus, and the needle. It will not be half as good as yours, but i feel as if i should try anyway. I have always loved art and dont plan o give up on it no matter what.I looked at your tiger nose one too, and they both greatly are helping me with my drawing. Why'd i pick a tiger? I just love the power their image distributes. I love jungle themed things, and tigers just seemed to be perfect. Thank you so, sooooooo much OnlyPencil!
From, Olivia
April 16th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
This is a very good eye tutorial. I'm really good at drawing human eyes but animal eyes are the ones that i'm struggling with. This will be a big help in the future for me. I'll try and draw it later but i'm sure it won't be as good as yours though. Thanks a lot :^)
August 8th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
wow tht helped me alot!
August 13th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
i was wondering if you can show a horses eye? its alot different than a tigers eye?
February 16th, 2012 at 2:33 pm
This is a beautiful eye, but the Eye does not match that of the tigers? In your drawing the eye looks like a lot of focusing on process and detail and not capturing the beauty and freedom of the animal…its pretty yes but I don't see the spirit that the tiger is expressing in the photo…when we draw from photos especially from animals we should search for the emotion the animal is expressing. Art is about drawing what we feel putting our heart and soul onto the paper…its good to have some guide lines to keep things proportioned but don't get to caught up in it. let loose a little. In high School I was drawing like this…always worried about details…But college has taught me to relax and focus on the object and its personality instead of worrying about little details. Keep drawing…your on the road to becoming a beautiful artist!
February 16th, 2012 at 2:35 pm
http://www.onlypencil.com/blog/cats/drawing-reali…