How To Draw 5 O'clock Shadow

Sunday Mailbag

March 8th, 2009 | Posted in Mailbag

Q: I have a lot of trouble with facial hair AND caput hair! I seem to freeze upwardly when someone sits with five o'clock shadow beard or shaved head. Any aid would exist greatly appreciated.

A: That question is hard to answer considering, like and then many "how practice I draw this…" inquiries, the reply is and then dependent on the style of drawing. Someone with a more illustrative, involved style of drawing could not use the same techniques as someone who does a very cartoony style, or one that does a more graphic manner. Therefore when answering such questions I invariably depict how I would practice it, based on my fashion of drawing. You lot will take to accept what you lot can from it and figure out your own solution. Many of the principals will utilize to whatever way, though.

Drawing five o'clock shadow/bristles stubble/beards on men (or on some ladies… at present THAT is always fun) is not very difficult. It tin be time consuming, especially the "3 day growth" kind of scruffy look, only the nuts are constant and there a a few "don'ts" to avoid.

First off, you need to ascertain what is the 'beard expanse". In that location are differences between men, just in full general facial hair grows in the same places on all men:

beard-area

With that in mind, you can just imagine the ho-hum growth of a man's beard from the commencement hints of 5 o'clock shadow to stubble to a multiple day growth to the commencement of a existent beard. The trick is to brand certain you shape the hair to reinforce the structure of the confront underneath. Nothing flattens out a drawing more facial hair that destroys the forms below it:

flat-lines

measles

Let's exercise this in stages, starting with 5 o'clock shadow.

5 O'Clock Shadow-

Of course men's facial hair grows constantly and by the end of the 24-hour interval (given they shaved in the morning) many men take noticeable growth on their faces. This is especially truthful of dark haired men with light skin.

The affair well-nigh 5 o'clock shadow is that is actually doesn't annals to the eye equally hair.

When didactics alive caricature I talk a lot about "distance specific" cartoon. That simply ways that although we know that things similar eyelashes are made upwards of tiny petty hairs, to the coincidental observer from a comfortable distance we don't really SEE the hairs. What we see are shapes of nighttime values broken up by a few lashes that are visible. Likewise with bristles stubble, information technology needs to be a day or more growth before the eye really recognizes the whiskers. 5 o'clock shadow is really but a color or value to the casual observer.

In black and white, this can exist accomplished in a few ways. If you are cartoon in a more cartoony fashion, a few crosshatched lines can pull it off:

shadow-in-line

If you are working with some kind of value technique (maybe lead pencil/graphite with a blending stomp) y'all can just add a darker tone in the bristles area:

face-shadow

Finally, if yous are working in colour the 5 o'clock shadow is represented well as a blue or green darker value over the skin tone:

color-face

color-shadow

Remember to keep the darkest values on the edges of the features, with the lighter areas away from those edges. That will aid develop the construction of the lower confront.

Stubble-

In one case the hair on the confront becomes more noticeable, you have to bite the bullet and describe them as hairs. Withal, to endeavor and depict all the hairs would non simply take forever information technology would ruin much the "distance specific" effectiveness of the drawing. It's like drawing pores on the skin.. we know they are there merely we don't really run across them.

The play a joke on is to "propose" the presence of the pilus, but not to depict every whisker. You stick with the same concept every bit with the shadow, keeping the darker values to the edges of the features and leaving the center areas more clear. You lot also brainstorm to break the edges of the face contours with some short hair texture:

stubble

Don't forget to shape the hair. Facial hairs grown in various directions, so don't draw them all in the same direction. Utilize that to help with the shaping.

Multiple Day's Growth-

Same basic concept only longer hairs, and more than of them:

daysgrowth

Curt Beards-

Ditto. The pilus keeps filling the "beard surface area" until they go so close together they essentially obscure the skin entirely. Then they are beards, not whiskers.

Hither's a erstwhile sketch o'the week that has a lot of facial hair drawn in. Sometimes you just end up spending time on it to make it expect convincing:

Thanks to Billy Melago for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag near cartooning, analogy, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, electronic mail me and I'll try and reply information technology hither!