Okay so as you all know I’m an extremely nit-picky kind of person who is very bothered if small details aren’t right. And there’s this thing I’ve noticed artists (both professionals and tumblr fanartists) do very often.
Somehow someone with this length of hair
Can tie their up in a clean ponytail or braid like this
You’ve literally made the hair longer.As someone who has grown out their hair from a pixie-cut to a shoulder-length bob, I know the struggles of tying back short hair. Hair this length can only maybe be tied up at the nape of the neck, and it would look something like this
Very messy with huge chunks of hair falling out and a ponytail so small it’s more like a bulldog’s tail.
Also shorter bangs don’t magically stay put you tie your hair back. This is what actually happens
And like if you really want your hair out of your face you really have to do something about the bangs. They are the worst offenders when I’m trying to work on something or if it’s windy outside. Simply tying your hair back won’t cut it. And something that I often seen ignored on this site are these wonderful things
Headbands! I use them ALL the time. And there’s many great variations of it
Bandanas are a go-to for me if I want to keep my hair out of my face while looking nice. I’ve got them in 3 different colors.
Anyway, the shortest length you can tie your hair into a clean, mid-head ponytail is this length
This is my current length of hair. At this length you can also braid it, and if you want a french braid you can actually start at a shorter length. Braids at this length should look like this
Also I’ve been using somewhat female-looking hairstyles with this, but it’s the same for men. Which brings me to another topic...
Those are different because mullets don’t grow the same way as bobs. When I grew out my pixie-cut, I had an awkward mullet stage. Now I’m not exactly sure if it’s the same for people who intentionally want a mullet, but this is somewhat how it progressed for me
I actually cut it around stage 3 in this diagram, because a pixie-cut doesn’t naturally grow into a nice bob. That’s because the hair isn’t all at the same length. It’s like it has a lot of layers
I cut off the orange part in stage 3 because that was a thin, wispy part that really defined it as a mullet, and not just a bob with layers.
If you wanna tie up a mullet, this is the best you can do.
Most of the volume of the hair is on the top part, so the green and orange layers are thinner and just make a small messy ponytail. Unless you have a longer mullet like a biker, then you can do whatever you want. But the modern mullet seems to only be about this long.
I mean like, it’s all stylization and most art styles warp reality a little bit so you can really do whatever you want, but if you want to be more accurate in your drawings or even writing I would take this into account.
my little rant turned into a full-blown tutorial lol. I just wanted to share my struggles with tying short hair because it can really be a bitch
