Male Hair Drawing Guide For Beginners [Quiff, Ivy League Haircut, Dreadlocks]

Time to learn how to draw male hair!​

Did you know that, on average, humans have around 100,000 hairs on their heads?

Of course, that number varies from one person to the next.

But still, men, too, can have rich and luscious hair, which then seems too hard to draw.

In this tutorial, we’re going to share the steps to easy male hair drawing and show you how to draw three popular men hairstyles:

• A quiff
• The Ivy League haircut
• The dreadlocks

in case you prefer to draw by looking at illustrations — read on to discover images at every step!

Sketching Tools To Draw Male Hair

To draw male hair, these tools might come in handy:

• An H pencil: A hard lead leaves a light trace on the paper, and that’s exactly what you need to create outlines.
• An HB pencil: The golden mean of pencils, this is a medium hard lead that’s perfect for detailing, building lines and soft shading.
• A B pencil: Soft lead is a go-to choice for shading.
• A kneaded eraser: These are soft, tweakable erasers you can shape however you like, so we recommend adding them to your set of tools.
• Lightly textured sketch paper: The lightly textured paper has a smooth surface, which means that your pencil simply glides over its surface and drawing male hair becomes easier.

These are just recommendations — you can use whatever pencil, eraser and paper you’re most comfortable with!

Now let’s get started!

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How To Draw A Quiff In 5 Steps

The quiff became popular in the 1950s. James Dean and Elvis Presley were among the first to rock this cool hairstyle.

There are many ways to style a quiff, but we’ll show you how to draw a messy and wild hairstyle that men love to wear.

1. Draw The Hairline

Recommended tool: H pencil

Since we’re drawing male hairstyles, the first step is to draw a male head.

If you need help with that, check out our guide on how to draw a face for beginners.

Once the head is in place, let’s sketch the hairline.

Draw a line from one ear to the next and shape it like a rounded “M,” like so:

2. Outline The Quiff

Recommended pencil: H pencil

With the hairline in place, you can now outline the quiff.

We’re going for a messy look and we want the strands at the top of the man’s head to freely fall around.

To outline the quiff, let’s first draw a half-circle. Go from the right ear and draw a line above the head and then bring the line back down and connect it with the left side of the hairline.

Then, draw a line at the point where this outline touches the hairline and point the line toward the back of the head.

Using a curved line, connect this strand with the large half-circle you first drew.

Lastly, connect the smaller hair section with the ear using a line that follows the shape of the man’s head, like this:

Then, let’s outline the rest of the quiff.

Draw a line from the top of the hairline on the right and curve it so that it touches the man’s right ear.

Then, add one more spike-like shape between the large half-circle and the smaller hair section on the left.

From there, sketch a wavy line that touches the large half-circle and has its end peak on the right:

3. Erase The Guidelines

Recommended tool: kneaded eraser

Before you start adding the details, grab your eraser and remove the head outline since it won’t show under all the hair.

Leave just the hairline, like this:

4. Add The Details

Recommended pencil: H pencil

With your H pencil, go over the quiff outline and start adding details to the hairstyle.

For starters, go over the part of the hair at the front that looks like a large wave.

Add short, curved lines at the roots to depict the fullness of the hair:

Continue to go over the lines until you’re done with the entire quiff outline.

And don’t forget to add the short lines at the root and on the hair’s surface.

The part of the hair that’s just above the ears is shorter than the hair on top, but you should still make it a bit messy, with stray hair peaking here and there:

5. Shade Your Quiff Drawing

Recommended tools: HB and B pencils, kneaded eraser

To finalize your quiff drawing, shade it using HB and B pencils.

Alternatively, you can apply different levels of pressure to your pencil of choice to create various shades of grey.

You can start by adding more lines around the head with your HB pencil; that will make the hair appear richer:

To finish your male hair drawing — the quiff edition, make sure that the parts of the hair that are covered with voluminous strands are darker than the rest of the hair.

The top of the hair should be lighter than the rest since it’s exposed to light. You can use your eraser to add some highlights to the hair, like this:

How To Draw An Ivy league Male Haircut In 5 Steps

The Ivy League haircut is also known as the Harvard Clip or Princeton.

The top front art of the hair is slightly longer than the rest of the hair so it can be styled in several ways.

We’ll show you how to draw the Ivy League haircut with short bangs brushed up, forming a pompadour front.

1. Draw The Hairline

Recommended tool: H pencil

Let’s start drawing the Ivy League haircut by sketching the hairline.

Like before, we want to connect the left side of the head to the right.

You can make a soft M-like shape in the middle of the hairline, like so:

2. Outline The Ivy League Haircut

Recommended tools: H pencil

To draw the front of the hair brushed up, draw three small, horn-like shapes and angle them slightly toward the right.

Make sure they don’t go over the head outline:

Continue adding the same shapes along the entire hairline.

Make sure that the strands of hair gradually become shorter the closer you get to the temples:

Next, let’s outline the hair at the back.

This step is very simple. All you have to do is draw a line that follows the shape of the head and goes slightly above it:

3. Add The Details

Recommended tool: HB pencil

Now’s the time to add some details to this hairstyle!

Using your HB pencil, go over the spiky bits at the front of the head:

Continue drawing short lines at the front close to the roots to make the hair richer.

Then, go over the hair outline in the back and make it softer by adding more hair along the outline:

4. Erase The Guidelines

Recommended tool: kneaded eraser

Before we get to the final stage of drawing an Ivy League haircut, let’s get rid of the head outline we no longer need.

Go carefully over the back part of the head and erase it so that you’re left with this:

5. Shade Your Ivy League Haircut Drawing

Recommended tools: HB and B pencils, kneaded eraser

To shade your drawing, you can first color the entire hair in one shade of grey, like so:

Now, combine the HB and B pencils to create different grey hues around the hair.

Make the roots and sideburns darker than the rest of the hair.

Then, using your eraser, highlight the front of the hair and the sides, like this:

And that’s it, you now know how to draw another male hairstyle!

How To Draw Dreadlocks In 3 Steps

Dreadlocks are popular among people of all ages and genders because they’re cool and evergreen.

We understand that drawing them may seem challenging (especially to beginners), but we know just the way to make drawing dreadlocks easy and quick.

1. Draw The Hairline

Recommended tool: H pencil

You know the drill by now — no matter the male hairstyle you’re drawing, always sketch the hairline first.

This time around, let’s draw a straight hairline, like this:

2. Outline The Dreadlocks

Recommended tool: H pencil

We’re going to draw medium-length dreadlocks with a parting on the right side of the head.

For starters, let’s draw the short dreadlocks on the side.

Sketch soft, 2D lines and curve them, so that they follow the shape of the head.

Keep the shapes short, above the ear, with one of them reaching the middle of the ear.

As for the hair that’s swept over the head to the left, again, draw the same soft lines and make them parallel to the earlobe:

Continue adding more dreadlocks on the left side of the man’s head.

Make sure to follow the shape of the head, but do play with the dreadlocks’ length.

Draw them short at the front, with some reaching the brows and others the cheekbones:

Next, let’s add more dreadlocks at the back of the head.

Make sure the dreadlocks become gradually shorter as you go from the ears to the top of the scalp:

3. Shade Your Dreadlocks Drawing

Recommended tools: HB and B pencils, kneaded eraser

To shade the dreadlocks, you can first color the whole hair in one shade of grey:

Then, make the edges of every dreadlock darker with HB and B pencils.

With your eraser, go over the dreadlocks’ surface to make it lighter than the rest of the hair that isn’t as exposed to the light:

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Finished Your Male Hair Drawing? Try These Next!

Since you’re into art and drawing, would you like to check out more tutorials?

We covered it all, from animals and landscapes to character and people.

You may be interested in these:

• How to draw hair
• How to draw curly hair
• How to draw anime hair
• How to draw braids
• How to draw a person
• How to draw a face
• How to draw ears
• How to draw a mouth
• How to draw a nose
• How to draw eyes

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A Recap On Easy Male Hair Drawing

Whether you’re drawing a quiff, an Ivy League haircut or dreadlocks, the trick to drawing male hair is to start from the hairline and add hair sections one by one.

Once you create the hair outline, you can add the details to enhance the hair’s structure and then shade it to bring it to life.

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