How to Draw Anime Facial Hair – Beards & Mustaches

This tutorial looks at drawing anime facial hair including beards, mustaches and sideburns. Just as other facial features a particular style of facial hair can help emphasize a certain type of character.

There are many ways to draw anime or manga style facial hair. This tutorial goes over some of the more basic and simplified examples. It can be especially helpful if you are a beginner artist.

The Common Shape of Facial Hair

Before you draw a beard or a mustache its good to have an understanding of the overall shape of facial hair.

While facial hair can vary in shape for the purposes of this tutorial we will look at a more common example. As in the above illustration facial hair tends grown down from the sideburns with some hair on the cheeks. After that the hair goes down from the nose curving around the top lip. The hair then grows down form the bottom lip down towards the chin but there are some open areas on each side of the lips towards the bottom.

If you want to draw a character that looks like they haven’t shaved in a few days but does not really have a beard or a mustache start by drawing out the shape of the hair as described above and lightly shade the area. You do not need a visible outline around the shape as the hair is too short to be so well defined but what you can do is draw a few very short individual hairs.

Drawing an Anime Full Beard

To draw a full beard first draw the overall shape of the hair as described in the previous example. After that you can somewhat project the hair downwards and eventually draw some branching out clumps on the ends. Draw the clumps pointing in different direction for a more natural look.

This type of facial hair could be a good fit for a character that has been out in the wilderness for a while away from civilization.

Drawing an Anime Beard With Mustache & Sideburns

This type of facial hair is similar to the previous example but with shaved cheeks and shorter in length. It can give character a more “manly” but at the same time more “civilized” look.

To draw this type of facial hair you can once again draw out the overall shape first (but with the cheeks shave) and then project it downwards. Draw a few small clumps on the ends.

Drawing an Anime Beard & Mustache

This type of beard and mustache tends to give a character a more sophisticated look like a doctor or a scientist.

To draw this type of facial hair again as in the previous examples start with the overall shape of the top part of the hair and project downwards.

Drawing an Anime Beard With Sideburns

A beard with sideburns can give a character a more “spiritual look” like a monk for example.

To draw this type of hair you can basically leave the mustache and cheek areas “blank”. Draw the sideburns connected with the beard and the part where the facial hair grows down from the chin.

Drawing an Anime Goatee

A goatee is fairly easy to draw as its really just a scruff of hair at the bottom of the chin. In anime and manga it can often be seen on “delinquent” type characters.

To draw the goatee in the above example draw the hair growing down from the bottom lip but not touching (leave a good amount of space) and spreading outwards as it goes down. Draw some light clumps on the ends.

Drawing an Anime Mustache

When it comes to anime and manga mustaches similar to the above example are fairly rare but you may be able to see some on characters in retro style themes.

To draw this type of mustache simply draw it below the nose and leave some space between the mouth (this is where the upper lip would be but lips are often not drawn in anime). and the hair. If you want  a mustache with longer hair then you can even have it completely cover the mouth.

Conclusion

Anime facial hair is not too difficult to draw but just as with real hair there are nearly countless variations. This tutorial provides some of the basics but if you need more help you can always look at the work of other artists and at examples of real hair.

For drawing different types of male anime characters see:

How to Draw Male Anime Characters Step by Step