Different Ways to Draw Anime Hair Highlights

Posted on by animeoutline

This short tutorial shows several common ways to draw anime hair highlights. The examples include simple, gradient and realistic highlights.

Hair highlights are basically just light reflecting from the hair. Their color can change depending on the color of the light source but generally they tend to be white.

Anime and manga style hair highlights are often very simplified and fairly easy to draw though the way you draw them can depend on weather you are using traditional or digital medium.

After looking over the different examples also be sure to watch the “How to Draw Anime Hair Reflections Video” at the end of the tutorial!

No Highlights Anime & Manga Hair

Though this tutorial is about drawing hair highlights it should also be mentioned that in some occasions anime hair can be drawn without any highlights at all.

Simple Anime & Manga Hair Highlights

The most basic type of hair highlight used in anime and manga can just be draw as one simple streak across the hair.

Anime hair simple highlight close-up — Anime hair simple highlight drawing example

For this type of hair highlight simply draw two lines to indicate the top and bottom of the hair highlight and then either leave the area white or color it in with a bright color.

Gradient Anime & Manga Hair Highlights

The gradient hair highlight is similar to the previous example but the edges are blurred/blended to have a smooth transition between the highlight and the color of the hair.

Anime hair gradient highlight close-up — Anime hair gradient highlight drawing example

If you are drawing on paper first draw a pair of lines to outline the highlight’s general shape (similar to the previous example) and then blend inwards from those lines. Be sure to make the outline wide enough to accommodate for the gradient.

When drawing digitally you can usually simply use a soft (blurry) brush to easily create this type of highlight (depending on the software).

Realistic Anime & Manga Hair Highlights

This type of highlight is less stylized and closer to real hair highlights and more traditional art.

Anime hair realistic highlight close-up — Anime hair realistic highlight drawing example

To draw a more realistic highlight like this on paper you can either create it as you color by leaving a random white area or you can lightly outline the highlight before coloring the hair.

If drawing digitally you can add the highlight after you finish coloring and/or shading the hair. Again this can vary depending on the drawing software but generally you can simply draw the highlight as a set of brush strokes.

How to Draw Anime Hair Reflections Video

Above is a quick video that gives a more in depth breakdown of drawing the three hair reflection/highlight variations show in this tutorial. It also features updated art.

Conclusion

Anime hair highlights/reflections are fairly easy to draw but the difficulty can vary depending on the medium you use and highlight type you choose. Generally, you can draw simpler reflections for characters that are more stylized and more detailed ones for characters with a more realistic design.

For other anime hair drawing guides see the following: