Curly Hair Tutorial

This tutorial can be followed in any program, but it was made for MS Paint. I hope it makes sense, this is my first try. XD


1. Open the doll you'll be using. Mine is nearly finished, but you can use just a base. Choose 6 colors.

<<< Start making small, roundish shapes. They're going to be the curls in the hair. You only need to make two for a doll this size (for a larger doll 3-4 is better). You should be able to stack the shapes on top of eachother.

It's a REALLY good idea to plan how you want the hair to look now. You can line up coils or you can just make a few short ones for bangs. I'm just using the coils for the the hair in front of the face and neck. This is the stuff that can go over clothing if you want.

Now arrange the coils on the sides of your doll's head. Leave the top bald.

2. Filling in the top is pretty easy. Just draw more round-ish shaped and stick them in. Once you're done, clean it up and erase any part of the base that's showing under the hair. I made the new area red.

3. And now you get to do the back! You have two choices. You can use the coils you made in Step 1 or you can draw new ones. To use the same coils just pull your doll over a coil until it's in the right place (see the picture below). It's sort of hard to explain, so if you don't get it you can just draw new shapes like you did in Step 2.

Drag the doll over the coils and align them. It might take a while to get it right. Once you get the hair in the right place you may need to make parts of it shorter. <<< Hover over picture.

1. Fix any problems you have with the outline. Try to keep the width down to one pixel at all times.

2. Using the second color, shade the area at the top of the head, and around the neck.

3. Continue with the third color. Shade the area behind the head, especially under the round shapes. Also shade more at the top of the head and under the round shapes.

4. With the fourth color fill in the rest of the area behind the head. Also fill places where less light hits the hair.

5. Nearly all the white space should be filled with color 5. Only leave places you want lighter blank.

6. Finish shading the hair. There shouldn't be any white areas left.


Yay! You're done!