Certain embodiments involve synthesizing image content depicting facial hair or other hair features based on orientation data obtained using guidance inputs or other user-provided guidance data. For instance, a graphic manipulation application accesses guidance data identifying a desired hair feature and an appearance exemplar having image data with color information for the desired hair feature. The graphic manipulation application transforms the guidance data into an input orientation map. The graphic manipulation application matches the input orientation map to an exemplar orientation map having a higher resolution than the input orientation map. The graphic manipulation application generates the desired hair feature by applying the color information from the appearance exemplar to the exemplar orientation map. The graphic manipulation application outputs the desired hair feature at a presentation device.