Hair Tutorial
Official site resource (Tutorials)


Hi there, people. Azkhadellia said she was making a general pixeling tutorial, so I thought I'd make one specifically about hair, because it's hard to get it right and I want you to be able to.

As I might have said before, for hair to work, you need to use 2 layers. One will go behind the doll base, one will go over it.

Let's start with the back layer. Look at the picture to the left, the parts of the doll base marked with green are not always there. For example, it's possible to have the following:

For your hair to work for all dolls, you have to draw all the hair that would be behind those green areas (more is also fine).

The easiest thing to do now is to just draw the haircut you wanted to make on top of the doll, including what's behind the green areas. I always draw the lines on one layer, and put a layer with the color underneath. Spend some time making the lines look pretty. Then add shading to the color layer. When you're done, so is the back layer of your hair cut.

For the front layer, copy the whole back layer, lines and coloring, and start erasing everything that would be behind the doll base, leaving just the front part of the hair. This can be tricky. Look at the image on the left again. If you want your hair to go behind the ears, it should also work for elf ears. So in that case, delete everything under the pink area from the front layer.

When you're ready to submit your item, save the two hair layers as two separate PNG images with transparent backgrounds. Here is an example:

Of course, if your hair is too short to have a back layer, you can just submit that one layer.

Feel free to pose questions in the comment box!
Wiki title:Hair Tutorial
Last changed:January 6, 2013 by Karin
Author(s):Karin
Page views:32
Visible to:anyone
Can be edited by:authors only
January 21, 2009 4:42 ()
Nice tutorial
i might try to make hairstyles soon
Tina
March 14, 2009 10:51 ()
Encouragement XD
Aye
March 14, 2009 15:06 ()
I will surely use this to make some hair
Aye
May 16, 2009 21:55 ()
yay! Nice tutorial! I'll be making a hairstyle soon.
Rose Messenger
June 2, 2009 19:51 ()
uhhg! Can we just submit hair for human ears cause i find making a hair style with elf ears difficult :/
Morbid_Angel
July 13, 2009 17:33 ()
It's not all that hard, you just have to leave extra space for them, that's all.

So yes, you have to make it so that it works with human ears and elf ears.

Or else, don't bother making hair.
Azkhadellia
August 27, 2009 10:39 ()
Um.. Which color is used for Transparency? I'm using paint, so.. It's a bit of a pain.
Kari
November 5, 2009 4:42 ()
uhmhum, where do we post this?
ZombieSaur
November 5, 2009 23:51 ()
Your question confuses me, but if you made an item you want to show us, I suggest posting it in the user submissions thread.
Karin
October 11, 2010 4:21 (13 years ago)
This is great, and do we have a shading tutorial? Or should I just look one up? ^-^;
/new
Blobbykitty
October 17, 2010 12:09 (13 years ago)
The user submission topic has some hints on how to shade. But as the artist, you can make it as detailed as you like.
No shading tutorials on here yet.
Karin
August 6, 2011 0:06 (12 years ago)
Sweet, this really helped me with my hair problem :D now im sure it'll look good!
Alerano
April 1, 2013 13:18 (10 years ago)
Wait So We Have To Make Two Hairs: The Front Side And The Back? This Is Gunna Be A Pain :P
MinecraftFan
September 22, 2013 3:59 (10 years ago)
not as painful as sleeves XD
Aki Izayoi
June 10, 2014 13:49 (9 years ago)
How do we post the picture of our item??
Kawaii Chup-chup
September 10, 2014 9:48 (9 years ago)
Now I get it! This is easy to understand! :D
Kawaii Chup-chup