Turbo Pudding

Twelve NeighborsFrom the sketchbook

You can tell a Harrow neighbor by the hair

· The Turbo Pudding team · 4 min read

Brenda Kowalski, juror two, in front of her salon at dusk on homecoming Thursday: a tall pale cream bouffant with a black rat-tail comb stuck in its side and a thin gray line of roots at the part, gold hoop earrings, a pink cardigan and a cream scarf; behind her, string lights, the neon sign BLESS YOUR HAIR over a pink and white striped awning, two hood dryers in a window marked WALK-INS WELCOME, children waving from a parade float and a big owl mascot by the hardware store next door

Twelve Neighbors puts you in a jury room with eleven other people from the same small town, and a lot of the game is spent looking at them across a table. Before anyone says a word, you should already know who is about to talk. Our rule for that is simple: you can tell a neighbor by the hair alone. This Sunday’s sketchbook page is about how the people of Harrow wear it.

Read the outline first

Every character is drawn so that the outline of the head says who it is. Fill a juror in with one dark color and the hair still gives them away: a tower, a cloud of coils, a flat top, a bun with a pencil through it.

The drawing rules are strict. Hair is one flat color with a dark outline and a single lighter stripe where the light catches it, never a gradient. Curly hair is a cloud of round bumps with a few small curls drawn inside it in a thin line.

Every style also comes in two layers: the back is painted behind the body, the front over the face. That is how Walt Pruitt’s white hair, combed straight back and long enough to touch his collar, shows up only as two little tufts behind his ears.

Brenda’s Sunday bouffant

Nobody in Harrow takes hair more seriously than Brenda Kowalski, juror two. She runs Bless Your Hair, the salon with the neon sign, the pink striped awning, two hood dryers in the window and “Walk-ins welcome” on the glass. In chapter 2 she deals out her business cards in the jury room, one per juror, with ten percent off a perm for after the trial.

Her own hair is the Sunday bouffant: half again as wide as her head and piled high above it, in a pale cream, with a black rat-tail comb stuck in one side. Look closely at the part and there is a thin line of gray roots. The town’s hairdresser has roots showing, and we wouldn’t change that for anything.

Four ways to go silver

Harrow has plenty of silver hair, and that was the trap. Four older women with four gray heads can blur into one, so each of them got a different shape and one detail that belongs to her alone.

Esperanza Méndez, 72, wears a short gray perm, tight curls that sit like a cap, with twelve little curl loops drawn into it and a blue crossword pen tucked behind her ear. Patty, juror twelve, is 71, and her silver braid is pinned around her head like a crown, drawn as a ring of small ovals that tilt left and right in turn. Judge Whitlock has a short natural cloud of silver coils with one white streak over her forehead.

Four older women of Harrow side by side on plain cream paper, shown from the chest up: Esperanza in big round gold glasses and chef’s whites under an orange cardigan with an ESPERANZA name patch, her short gray perm drawn with little curl loops and a blue pen behind her ear; Patty in purple cat-eye glasses and a purple top with a JUROR 12 sticker, a silver braid pinned around her head like a crown; Judge Whitlock in her black robe, half-moon glasses on a thin chain, a cloud of silver coils with a white streak over her forehead; and Grandma Dot in a cranberry sweatshirt with autumn leaves on it, a smooth silver cap of hair under a navy headband with red reading glasses resting on top, a phone in her hand
Search: “silver hair ideas over 70.” Harrow sent four answers.

Grandma Dot, 76, was the tricky one. Her short silver cut is a smooth, rounded cap, with the ends flicked out at the ears and soft bangs swept to one side. The note next to it in our files says it plainly: not curls, that’s Esperanza. A navy headband goes over the top, and her reading glasses sit up on the headband, ready for the next text she types in capital letters.

Short on top

Short hair gives you less to draw, so the men of Harrow lean on the shape of the head and on whatever grows below the nose.

Marcus Bell, juror one, has a shaved head with a single flat shine: one white stroke at 38 percent opacity, nothing more. His short beard is flecked with gray. Russ, 64, keeps a gray flat-top, ruler-straight across with a row of short bristle marks, and the sides nearly shaved. Travis, juror eleven, has a buzz cut and a goatee.

Four men from the chest up in the judge’s chambers, with shelves of law books, a green desk lamp, a tall window and a black robe on a coat stand behind them: Marcus in a navy suit, tie and glasses, his shaved head with a single white shine and a short dark beard; Russ in a teal shirt and a white apron, a gray flat-top with nearly shaved sides and a horseshoe mustache; Travis in a red work shirt with a TRAVIS name patch, a short buzz cut and a dark goatee, smirking; and Ray in a tan uniform shirt with a badge, smiling with his eyes shut, bald on top with a dark horseshoe of hair going gray at the sides
Typed “flat-top haircut near me.” Got four short answers.

Ray is thinning on top, with a couple of strands combed across and a dark horseshoe of hair that is going gray at the sides. Russ has a horseshoe too, but his is a mustache. Put the two of them side by side and you can tell them apart from the back of the courtroom.

Long hair, three ways

With the longer styles, it is all about how the hair is held. Paloma Méndez wears a high, messy bun with a yellow pencil pushed straight through it and two long strands left down by her face. Brittany Shaw’s hair is long and sleek, with a deep side part, and falls well past her shoulders.

Three women from the chest up on the courthouse square at sunset, red-brick buildings, the clock tower and orange autumn trees behind them: Paloma in a purple hoodie with headphones around her neck, her dark hair in a high messy bun with a yellow pencil stuck through it and two loose strands by her face; Brittany Shaw in a navy blazer over a white top, long sleek black hair with a deep side part; and the heroine in a mustard cardigan with a JUROR 7 sticker, light brown hair to her shoulders with a middle part and curtain bangs, the teeth of a mustard claw clip peeking over the top of her head
People also ask: “can a pencil hold up a bun?” Paloma’s can.

The heroine, Juror Seven, wears her hair to the shoulders, with a middle part and curtain bangs that reach her cheekbones. The top half is gathered in a claw clip. The clip sits on the back of her head, tilted a little, so from the front all you see is its bar and four small teeth peeking over the top. It is exactly the same mustard as her cardigan.

Come meet them

Chapters 1 and 2 are free to play in your browser at twelveneighbors.com. The full game, all seven chapters, is $9.99, paid once. More about the game is on the Twelve Neighbors page.

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