Legolas and Other Elves

My version:

Reference images:









Analysis (whoo, scientific): More of the ever-present fishtails. Legolas, Haldir, and the majority of the other elves we see (at least, the elves that we see the back of) have this style. The top half of the hair is pulled back into a fishtail braid, tied off with a piece of hair wrapped around the ends (pictures 4 and 8). The dividing line between the hair in the braid is show in picture 1, but as you can see in 3, it's a bit higher in a few scenes. A tiny fishtail braid runs along the bottom of the half ponytail line, following the ear down. Pictures 1 and 2 show this especially well; hair is added from the top of the braid only, holding it on the horizontal line. Most of the time, the small braids are also wrapped with a piece of hair (picture 5), but sometimes there's nothing holding the ends of them at all (pictures 6 and 7). Each time this was during or after a battle (picture 6 is after Moria, 7 is during Helm's Deep), so many all that running around just makes it fall out. Picture 8 is of Haldir, and you can see it's identical to Legolas' style.

Directions: Gather the top half of your hair, a couple inches above the ears and up. Braid it into a fishtail braid (Dreamweaver Braiding has directions on how to do a fishtail braid). Tie it off with an elastic a few inches from the ends, wrapping a piece of hair around the elastic to hide it. Now take a very, very small piece of hair from just in front of your ear. Start making a tiny fishtail braid, adding a strand of hair from above the braid every few crossovers. Continue this until you get past the ear, then stop adding new strands and just continue the fishtail to the bottom. Either wrap a strand of hair around each braid to hold it or just leave it loose. That's it!