If you’ve been on this website for a long time, you’ll know that I love hair.
I even had a comic page on Instagram solely focused on hair comics.
And drawing hair can be challenging – it took me some time to get the hang of it, myself!
In this post, I’m going to break down how to draw space buns in a step-by-step way so that you can draw different types of space buns.
It is one of the most popular cartoon hairstyles.
I already have a few hair tutorials here if you want to check them out.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a kid or an adult learning to draw hair, the steps are easy to follow, and as long as you follow the tutorial step by step, you should have no difficulty drawing it.
There are many types of space bunswe’ll be drawing today – We will learn to draw:
- Easy space buns (slightly messy)
- Space buns with half up and half down hair
- Space buns on a black girl (curly hair)
- And lastly, space buns with bangs
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Please note that I am currently using an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil to create all my illustrations. But you can use any tool – a pen and paper or Photoshop because the drawing method remains the same.
If you have Procreate but don’t know how to use it, please look at this beginner online course. It’s amazing.
Let’s begin.
Table of Contents
What are space buns?
Space buns are two buns on opposite sides of the head (generally on the top).
They can be worn in any fashion with all the hair in the buns, or the hair can be half up and half down. It’s a super cute and modern hairstyle generally worn by girls to look trendy and chic.
Let’s dive into drawing some different types of space buns.
How to draw Space Buns – Easy Step by Step for Beginners
Before we start drawing the hair, let’s begin by drawing the head. We can’t really draw the space buns without a cartoon head, can we?
Let’s just draw a simple head and draw the face too.
I’m drawing the head and the face in a cartoon style, of course.
You can draw your character’s head in any shape you feel comfortable with but I highly suggest you pick up this book if you’re looking for a good book to teach you to draw heads and faces in cartoon style.
1. How to draw easy messy space buns
Now, I’m going to start by splitting the hair in the middle and drawing it towards the space buns.
You can keep the hair straight, but I want to draw wavy hair.
So, I’m going to draw waves instead of straight lines.
The hair is pointing upwards because the space buns are on top of the head.
Next, I’ll draw the outline of the buns just to make it easy for me to draw the buns.
Next, I’m going to draw the space buns.
Try to draw the hair in one direction and vary the length and tightness of the waves in the bun.
This will make the hair look more realistic. I’ll complete the bun before moving to the next one.
Note the direction of the hair strands in the bun. It’s pointing inward.
Make your buns messy. It’s okay if 1 is bigger than the other – it will make your space buns look more natural!
We can leave it like this or add more detail.
I’ll draw 2 long side bangs that frame the face.
See this post if you want to learn how to draw bangs. Now that I’m happy with how it looks, I will erase all the overlapping lines and color the skin on a new layer underneath the outline layer.
I’m going to color her skin a nice caramel tone.
Next, with the bonobo brush, I will add some blush to her cheeks. Please see this post to learn how to color digital art.
Next, I’ll color the eyes and add bright purple lipstick.
You can go with any color you wish.
Next, I’ll color her hair with a base purple color.
You can leave it at this, but I want to add more detail to the space buns.
So, with a dark purple hue, I will use my bonobo chalk brush and color the middle of her parting as well as the ends of the space buns.
And using the smudge tool, I’ll just blend in the hue with the base color.
It looks lovely, but I want to add some bright pink streaks. So, I’ll go in with a magenta color to add the streaks to the space buns.
And we’re done!
We’ve just learned how to color messy space buns!
You can also use these space buns drawings as a reference to do your own.
Next, let’s move on to a popular type of space buns – half up half down space buns
2. How to draw half up half-down space buns
Half up half down space buns means that we make space buns with half the hair (usually the front half) and leave the rest of the hair down.
It can be done with straight or curly hair.
Let’s start with the usual head and face and do a rough outline of what the space buns will look like.
Okay, I’m going to start by drawing the parting in the middle and dividing the hair into 2 nice segments.
This character will have straight hair, so the hair strands will be more fluid as it’s going to the space buns.
Next, I’ll draw very tiny space buns, because most of her hair is flowing down to her shoulders since it’s a half up half down space buns hairstyle.
Now that I’ve completed drawing the space buns, I’ll draw the rest of the hair slowly moving toward the shoulders.
When drawing these strands remember to:
- Vary the length of the individual strands (it looks more organic)
- Vary the distance between the strands
- And vary the line thickness of each strand
Take your time drawing the hair.
Continue till you’ve finished drawing all the hair.
Once I’m done, I’m going to clean up the lines and color the face. Check out this tutorial to see how to color digital art.
Next, I’ll color the half up half down space buns with a base color like blue.
Then, I’m going to add more detail to the hair.
I’ll go in with a darker blue (more toward green) and add random strands in the hair.
It is important to move in the direction of hair growth when you are doing this.
Next, I’ll add some highlights.
With a light blue color (on a new layer, I’ll add some more strands), I will then change the blending mode to Add and change the opacity of this layer to 17%.
It’s completed!
And we’ve just learned how to draw and color half up half down space buns!
Doesn’t it look amazing?
Okay, let’s move on to another type of space buns – curly hair space buns.
Now most African American girls have kinky curly hair or curly hair. I’ve already covered how to draw different kinds of afro hair in this post, so we’re just going to learn how to draw space buns with curly hair.
3. How to draw space buns on a black girl (curly hair)
Kinky curly hair is very curly.
If you are trying to draw kinky curly hair in a cartoon style, it doesn’t make sense to draw each individual curl.
In this case, we’re going to convey the space buns of the black girl via the shape of the space buns alone and then add shadows.
Let’s begin!
We’ll start with a rough outline of the curly hair space buns.
Now, we are going to draw over the outline in small squiggle-like lines like so:
Remember to vary the density of the curls to make the curls look more organic.
Repeat this for the other section.
Once I am happy with the hair, I’m going to draw the space buns.
Remember to vary the degree of each curl when drawing the space buns. Keep some loops larger and some smaller.
I’m pretty happy with the curly hair space buns.
But if you want to go 1 extra mile, you can add some stray curls to each space bun – to show the loose strands of hair.
This will give your curly space buns a better look!
And now I will clean up the lines and color the girl’s skin using the same methods as before.
And I will now color the space buns with a base color.
I want to go for cotton candy because I feel it really suits our character.
Remember, you can go with any color you like! Let your imagination run wild.
Now, it’s time to convey the density of the curly space buns.
At the bottom of the bun (using a darker shade of pink), I will draw some curls – this will indicate the shadow of the bun.
And I will color the shadow completely using the same dark color and repeat it on the other side as well.
And yay!
We’ve learned how to draw curly space buns.
Now, moving on to something super easy…
4. How to draw space buns with bangs
Okay, now we’ll draw something simple: Space buns with bangs!
Let’s start with a rough outline first of the bangs and the space buns.
I’m going to ink the bangs first. I have a detailed post on drawing bangs here.
And then I will add some lines to the ends of the bangs just to add more texture.
Now, I’ll draw the space buns behind the bangs.
Remember when drawing the hair to the bangs to make the bottom part of the hair (right behind the ears) sag a little. This will show the viewer that the space buns are slightly heavy.
Once you’re happy with one side, proceed to do the other.
Now, I’m going to add some more strands to the hair overall.
And we can end it here, but I am going to add 2 long bangs to frame the character’s face.
Also, this looks super cute!
And now, I’ll clean up the sketch and erase all the overlapping lines before coloring the skin wth the methods listed above.
And then I will color the hair with a base color. I’m going to go for a medium green.
Next, using a darker green color, I will draw strands all over the bangs and space buns.
And then I will add some highlights to the hair.
We will use the same process as above, just take a bright blue and add some highlights on a new layer.
And then change the blending mode to Add and the opacity to 17%.
And we’re done!
We’ve just learned how to draw space buns with bangs! Woot woot.
Takeaway – How to draw space buns + Resources
I hope this in-depth tutorial was helpful to you, and that you were able to learn how to draw space buns of different kinds.
I know drawing hair can sometimes be challenging.
But drawing hair does get much easier with practice.
Trust me.
Also, drawing with references helps! You can look at stock photos to understand how hair works and practice daily drawing hair. You can also keep coming back to this post and use the space buns drawings as references as well!
I have a post that you can read on how to find your art style.
You can make things easier by picking up this Character Drawing Toolkit.
If you want to see more tutorials on hair and people, just leave a comment down below. You can check out my other posts on drawing hair over here.
I will be adding more hair drawing tutorials to this blog, so keep a lookout!
If you are looking for books on how to draw anime or how to draw anime space buns or anime hair, take a look at these:
If you’re looking to improve your drawings faster and want to really draw as a hobby or even pick up drawing professionally, I highly recommend picking up this beautiful online course that teaches you how to draw appealing characters with personality.
Use code STRAYCURLS-10 to get a 10% discount!
This class will teach you how to draw a character from scratch and then color it.
If you are just getting started with ProCreate, I highly recommend this course: Procreate for Beginners: Digital Illustration 101
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