I recently found a couple pieces of excellent hat drawing reference that I shared with some other artists on Phineas & Ferb, and I thought I'd spread the wealth and share it with everybody else, too.
"Draw the crown as if it fits directly over the skull, not the hair, no matter what angle is used for the hat. Some of the crown will not touch the skull because of the shape of the hat.Center the hat on the face, using as your guide the imaginary line running from the center of the crown down to the chin."
"Study the taper of the crown; Pay close attention to the correct angle of the taper of the crown as this is a style feature...The taper may vary with style changes."
One big reason that "how to draw hats" reference is so helpful is that you just don't see fedora hats very often these days. There's lots of great hat images in classic Bogart movies and other Film Noirs. I just watched The Big Heat a few weeks ago, and I couldn't stop looking at Glenn Ford's grey fedora (well, it was a black and white movie, so everything's grey...).
14 comments:
Sherm,....OK we can laugh about this,..but let me assure you, hats are an amazingly difficult thing for many of us to draw!!! MOST notably ME!!! I always struggle with them and end up scrapping the idea as I struggle with the brim and the angles in which they should be drawn!! This is soooo cool and reassures me that I apparently was not the only person to ever wad up a piece of paper with failed attempts at the hat!!!
Hi Todd...I'm glad to know that you find this as useful as I did. I had a feeling that other cartoonists would want to add this bit of hat reference to their swipe files.
Talk to you soon! --Sherm
Thanks, this helps me a lot!! By the way your blog rocks!
Hi there Vault Keeper...I really appreciate the nice comment! I dig your avatar, too -- E.C. Comics have been a giant inspiration to me ever since I started reading those Russ Cochran reprints in the early 80's.
Thanks for stopping by! --sherm
killer post sherm! this is the kind of stuff we need!
i love drawing hats, specially detective ones!
what a shame that are almost a lost fashion 'couse you could really know a lot about a character by the kind and shape of hat he is wearing.
thanks a lot!
sugestion for the next one: shoes!!
Sherm, this post is so fitting for me because I just recently had a ton of trouble trying to draw a fedora hat. XD These guides will be great practice; thanks so much. I kept thinking of Perry the Platypus while I was reading it, so it was funny (and appropriate) to see you mention it. :)
Hi Tanya...I'm really glad to hear that you liked the hat stuff! Thanks for the happy comment! --sherm
Fuck these HAT how to's are a must for animation.
Hiya Vincent...thanks for the enthusiasm!
Great post, thanks. I love hats, and vintage documents relating to them. Another article of interest on vintage hats : url=http://mrlapel.blogspot.com/2008/11/what-about-hats-part-2.html
So dig this post! Always fantastic nuggets of cartoon wisdom here Sherm! Thanks!
Thanks Sherm! I always find these hats tricky to draw also, but this post was extremely helpful in breaking down the steps ;)
-M-
I hope you don't mind but I posted this in my tumblr with the link to your page so I can reference back to this faster.
This is really helpful. Thank you so much!
Thank you, Thank you!
Tonight I have a commission to draw a realistic portrait of someone special, and his son has just told me it's imperative that I draw him in his hat. I have no photo reference of him in his hat. I was very worried. Now, I think I've Got IT!
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