How to draw chibi hair

Start with the silhouette, not the strands

At three heads tall, the whole head is maybe 90 pixels wide on screen. Individual strands of hair would each be under a pixel. So chibi hair is drawn the way a logo is drawn: three to five large shapes whose combined outline is recognisable in solid black. If your chibi head still reads as the right character when filled in flat black, the hair is working.

The five-step method

1. Draw the skull as a circle, then mark the hairline — a band across the top third, not halfway down. 2. Decide the parting: centre, side, or none (all swept back). 3. Block in the fringe as two or three wedges that sit on the skull, not hanging in front of it. 4. Add one to three spikes or a single long mass on each side; odd numbers read better than even. 5. Place the highlight band as one broad stripe following the skull curve, roughly a third of the way down from the crown.

Four mistakes that flatten the head

First, hair covering more than a third of the face — at chibi scale, the eyes are the identity, and burying them costs more than the hair gains. Second, spikes pointing outward like rays instead of following gravity; chibi hair still falls. Third, a visible hairline arc across the forehead, which makes the skull look like a helmet. Fourth, uniform strand width — real hair masses taper, and tapering is what makes three shapes look like hair rather than cardboard.

Colour: two values beat five

Pick a base colour and one shadow, then add a single highlight band. More values than that turns into noise at sticker size. If the character has a signature colour, put it in the highlight band rather than in the base — the eye reads the lightest area first, and that is where recognition happens.

Where to go next

Read next

• How to draw chibi eyes
• How to draw a chibi body
• Anime chibi: the complete guide

All chibi presets · Style families · Open the generator

About this guide

This guide is editorial content written by the ChibiArts team. ChibiArts is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of the studios, brands or trademark owners named on this page — those names are used descriptively, to compare visual styles.