How to draw hands!
Drawing hands is notoriously tricky. Hopefully reading this article will help you to dissect drawing hands into a more approachable task.
- Try different methods. Draw your own hand as an exercise. Draw the wrist linking to the palm of the hand. Look at the creases of the hand, and start with the overall shapes of the wrist linking to the palm first. This gives you a good base from which to start. When drawing the fingers, try not to draw the outlines only. Think of how the fingers extrude from the palm, and adjust the outlines accordingly. I found when I tried this method, my sense of the hand became more focus on how the hand is formed, and the fleshy parts around the fingers became less intimidating. See my attempt below.
- Use different references. There are 3 forms of reference - real life, the internet, and using books can also really help. I've prepared the following guidelines to help you get the most out of your references!
- Trace your own hand and divide it into segments. The palm of the hand, the thumb, and its curve where it intersects with the palm, the fingers and the different knuckles of the different fingers. It's also worth noting that the hand has a certain rhythm. The tip of the thumb aligns with the topmost knuckles of the rest of the fingers, while the topmost knuckle of the thumb aligns with the middle knuckle of the rest of the fingers. Being aware of these things will help you to draw the hand more consciously.
- Look at the 3-dimensional forms of the hands. Take the structure you've learned about and break them into two things - cylinders for the fingers, and a cube for the palm.
5. Take this learning and draw your hand from different angles.
This tutorial should help you to start drawing burly, exciting, gentle, boxy hands. All hands are different!