
I know this has been done a few times before, but it hasn't in a while, so I thought I'd start :-)
Growing our hair is generally hard for all of us, although more difficult for some.
It can really help, especially if you are a newbie, to have someone or a few people, to inspire you as you undertake the journey (or even at the end of your journey, if ever tempted to 'cut it all off').
This is not to say that your hair will ever look like the ones you are inspired by, as you are your own individual, nevertheless, their hair could help you realise the full potential of yours.
(Some men, 'born longhairs' etc. don't need to be inspired to grow out their hair, yet I'm sure they would also find certain looks or people inspring on a purely aesthetic level)
I have found personally that the longhairs I was inspired by had shorter hair than the ones I have now when my own hair is longer. This is natural, as we all need realistic goals, especially when starting off.
So don't be afraid to post a picture of someone with awkward stage length, if that is where you are at.
Unlike other places on the worldwideweb there is no discrimation here. This is a supportive community, so lets support each other and get inspired!
P.S. The man above is Shawn Michaels, a WWF (now called WWE) Professional Wrestler. He has had varying types and lengths of hair since about 1993. These pictures however are mainly form 1996.
His hair and physique are what I aim for myself, although I am also inspired by quite a few others, from Adrain Paul (The Highlander!) to Casanova!
It did not take me very long at all to find these pictures and put them together yet I feel inspired anew by doing so.
It's a win win baby!
Not gonna bother with pictures....it's far too early for all that.
Anyway, early on when I grew my hair for the first time as a teenager, I looked to the popular metal artists of the day - Ozzy, Metallica, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Exodus, etc., primarily mid-eighties through early nineties thrash.
As my tastes evolved and I shifted more toward the industrial scene, my hairstyle changed as well, being clipped short in the back and nearly shoulder length up front. I didn't really have anyone that I looked to at that point in my life.
When I took a desk job several years ago, I shaved my head. Two years ago or so I made the call to grow it out again; my tastes have evolved still further, and I've looked to artists such as Bathory, Mayhem, In Flames, Children of Bodom, Carcass, Arch Enemy, etc. - reflecting my taste for Scandi metal, melodic metal, black metal, grindcore....
I posted a two-year update a while back, I've obviously got a way to go yet before my hair is where I want it to be, but I'm cool with it. It's longer now overall than it ever was before.
-m
p.s. - here's a repost of my 2-yr pic as seen on myspace
my inspiration for hair... i like nirvana and kurt cobain but im not a big fan or obsessed, i just like the hair =) id love to make it just to the length of his hair in this image... this is my goal but id probably carry on growing when i reach this stage... how long would this hair growth usually take approx from short hair that grows straight? any estimations would help me a lot.. im at about 4 months now growing.
I would say if I cut my hair all the way around to the length of my bangs it would be just a little longer than that. Maybe a year and a half total time would get you in the right ball park.
-m
I've got two main inspirations: Floyd, a red hair with butt lenght and marvelous texture and thickness, and Regine, the most beautyfull hair I've seen in all my life...
Here they are =)
And you know what? Someday I'll have hair as long and beautyfull as they do... I'm sure of it =)

Its hard to point out one specific person or people who inspired in me the desire for long hair mainly because there was such an enormous gap of time between when I first thought the idea of long hair was really cool and when I actually got around to growing it out (about 20 years, longer than some of our younger members have even been alive! )
But being a huge Rush fan from way back I will pick Geddy Lee!
Yeah, guys like Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Edge, and Undertaker are all big inspirations for me since i am a wrestling fan.
Another big inspiration is the band Type O Negative. Every member has beautiful hair. In my opinion, Josh Silver (back left) has the best =)
like Slow, Deep & Hard or Life Is Killing Me, you'll like Carnivore.
-m
Now that's some eye candy ;)
haha a fan of the movie LawnMower man are you ???
Axel

Yes, Shawn Michaels does have cool hair, so as well does Triple H. Chris Jericho did too, and really still has kind of cool longish hair now.
Brendan Fraser had cool long hair for a while.
Gerard Butler as Attila the Hun, picture below, was some hair that I really was inspired by when this movie came out in 2001, I think.
I always liked long hair, but it took me so long to realize that I, too, could have it. Then tried several times including the present, but am still trying, definitely to be successful this go-round without interference from nay-sayers.

This is like the coolest picture to me.
That's a fantastic picture of Brendan.
I bet you that that is how he prefers his hair too, although being in Hollywood he could never pull it off permanently, which is a bit of a shame.
Well at least, as an actor, he did get to grow his hair long at least once.
That is why I love long hair! I know it's weird, but I think those guys are cool; why? Is it because of their weapons? Nah. Is it because of their bad ass attitude? It doesn't hurt.. But it's really because of their hair!
lol
n/t
Sephiroth! Excellent. I always liked his hair, it looked so cool.
Interestingly enough, I'm replaying FFVII right now.

Do you know who this character is?
I've had the picture for a while, based on the great hair, but I have no idea who it is.
I'm probably wrong, but I have 2 ideas:
Zack - the guy who did what Cloud said he did in FFVII. He had black spikey hair though.
Or, an early concept sketch of Cloud. He originally had slicked-back black hair (to contrast with Sephiroth's long, flowing grey hair).
But I'm probably wrong.
The one dude that i look up 2 the most: JIM MORRISON..... legendary lead singer of THE DOORS!
I don't really know. I just decided I wanted long hair in 2001 and I've been growing since.
One of my inspirations for keeping doing it Ole Halvard Sveen from Extol:

There´s lots of longhaired figures who inspire me to keep going, no matter how many rocks are thrown at me along the way...
Everytime I see a noble medieval/fantasy character with long hair I´m totally taken away, and it serves as a great source of inspiration for me
But if someone asked me who´s hair I´d like to have, first person that comes to mind is bassist and singer Marco Hietala from Nightwish and Tarot...
Not only because he´s my favourite metal singer, but also because he´s got EXACTLY the length and texture I want to achieve some day!

Good Thread...
I like the hair of the Beatles (and music) from the Hey Jude/Abbey Road days. Of the four, George had the the best (and a very cool beard). So I'll say George Harrison from 1969 is my inspiration.
Yeah man, the beatles r a very gud inspiration 2 me 2..! george definitely had the coolest hair i think.....
I tend to be inspired by people who have hair types completely unlike mine. I always envision incredibly long, straight hair but I know it won't happen so I just want the "long" part
http://cajita_de_carton.tripod.com/cannib5.jpg - all the dudes from Cannibal Corpse have AWESOME hair.. except for Jack Owen on the left :)
I've always wanted longhair. I hated shorthair. But seeing great hair gives me strength.
This may seem kinda tacky considering where some of you got your inspiration from. But I got my inspiration from Gollan!
Here is his main page:
http://gollan.pwaresearch.com/
There were 2 sets of pictures of him that have a really rugged and accomplished look to them(Thats not to say his others didnt, but these 2 set really stuck out in my opinion) Like combination of a computer freak and a nature freak/mountain man.(Both are cool in my opinion considering I am both!)
First set
http://gollan.pwaresearch.com/hp/hp_august_03_bonus.html
Second set
http://gollan.pwaresearch.com/hp/hp_february_04_extrabonus.html
I Personaly think a short-medium length pony tail is really cool/good looking. I know that many of you perfer to leave your hair down, but when mine gets longer its always gonna be in a tail!
I'm a born longhair who has only been growing his hair for about a year and a half, but there are two film characters who have inspired me to grow my hair - Will Turner in Pirates of the Carribean, and Legolas in Lord of the Rings. Originally I was aiming for Will-lenght, now I'm going for Legolas-lenght.
Yes, both are played by Orlando Bloom. No sarcy comments please ;)
That's amazing!
I remember watching PotC in the cinema-a few days after I had my mid-back length hair completely cut off in 2003-and just wishing desperately that I could have my ponytail back again.
Bloom's hair made me especially jealous. Yet now, almost 3 years after I saw that film, I can't believe how short his hair is in my view. I'm way past that now!
I guess it guess back to what I was saying before about realistic goals. This is especially interesting though in that only a few days before I saw that movie, I had mid-back length hair and yet I was being inspired at that time by someone with much les hair than that.
Really, really wierd for me to recognise this.
P.S. I guess you could say I'm also going for 'legolas length' now :-)

Oh cool that would be lead singer Bono U2 use to be a big fan of their early stuff not very keen on them now
Axel
I can't think of anyone in particular. I just started to pay more attention to the fact that a lot of young guys these days are getting around with medium length hair. Ideas loosely floated around in my head for a while until I decided I might let it grow a bit longer. Some ways into that, I thought about growing it, say, to my shoulders and beyond. So I started looking around the net for info/advice about it. Hence I found the board.
So it's no-one especially, just a collective inspiration by young, medium length guys.
LukeB
What happens, then, with the occasional "oddball" who doesn't need an inspiration? What happens when the bloke who wants to "grow it out" just happens to feel that it's just RIGHT independent of external influence?
Ah, there it is. I must be one, then.
I'll admit that I liked (and still like) the look of long-haired characters in anime -- even felt some "justification" (if one needs that) in the genre. The look of the anime hero with his hair blowing in the wind is a very strong one.
Long hair usually is. Embrace it!
There's a guy in our drumline with shoulder length, blonde, wavy-curly hair that's more or less exactly like mine. It looks WAY cool, and during marching season he wears it in a really awesome looking bun. I hope when my hair reaches that length it looks like his does.
Wow! Shawn Micheal's hair was very long back then.
Remember when he had a mullet? lol
I have so many inspirations, most of them curly haired rock musicians.
Here's a few, in no particular order :
Slash
Kirk Hammett
Marty Friedman
Steven Sweet
Jake E Lee
All these guys have atleast mid-back curly hair.
Also guys like HHH and other wrestlers provide good inspiration.
Heavy metal, long hair and wrestling go so well together. A perfect combination. It's like soda and pizza.
this guy^^
but with my hair type and my grow rate i barely have the chance to even get the half of his lenght (waist length) ... maybe next life hrhrhr :)

RedTail Wolf

Hello,
Longhairs who are sources of inspiration are not the main reason why I have longhair.
But I must admit that pictures in my mind that I found particularly great.
In the anime world, Nakago in the Fushigi Yuugi serie.
In the movie world,
- Adrian Paul in the Highlander series.
- many actors in the Lord of the Ring movies.
I don't think I will have the chance to have their hair, but I like them.
In this board, maybe Brazjol has been a another source too.
Garath

Finally some one else around here mentions Adrian paul too!
I've posted anoter picture of The Highlander as a result.
Can't wait till the Source!
My longhair inspiration?
So, my hair is always growing, and my mother always said when i was a child "you have ti cut your hair" then we went to the hairdresser.
It was two or three years i told my mother when she was going to say his fatal sentence "i know what you are now thinking, and i guess that it's about my hair." and i told her that i would let my hair grow.
For several reasons, i believe it's better to let my hair grow because i had a logical reasoning :
Hair is continuously growing, therefore if you cut it, it grow again, (almost) forever...
Peace, Fellow

2 of my biggest inspirations for growing my hair long is both Antonio Banderas from Desperado & Steven Seagal, i think the long hair really suits Antonio and he shouldn't have cut it in the first place..
i agree. he looked bad person in desperado.
As a teenager, my long-haired inspiration was River Phoenix. Gone but not forgotten.

For me its Zakk Wylde.
Blond Rocker EDGAR WINTER!!!!
Dave Mustaine was a huge influence for me to continue growing my hair. I saw a picture of him that was posted on this board a while back and even at his age his hair is looking absolutely amazing. While I intend to grow my hair way past his length now, it was so inspiring to see someone with hair in such great condition after so many years.
Maynard!
Every person I see with waist length or longer hair!
Definitely Rob Van Der Loo
www.robvanderloo.com... now that's some hair :D