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Hand Tutorial - Blog Posts
Hey friends!
Meg here for this week’s TUTOR TUESDAY! This week I go over just a little trick that I like to use when drawing and connecting arms/hands/legs/feet ect. This helps me with foreshortening as well. I hope it helps you folks as well! I have tutorials that talk more specifically about hand/foot/leg anatomy here. If you have any tutorial recommendations send ‘em in here or my personal. Now go forth and I’ll see you next week!
I’m not an expert but I like hands a lot so hopefully some of this was helpful!
Obviously, I’m not the best with drawing hands. But that basic shape helped me with drawing hands best. (Circle works for me too but not as good as that ‘fan shape’ my professor taught our class).
Don’t forget to keep practicing and using real life references–It’s the best way to draw good hands! Take your time drawing them! Don’t rush (unless you really wanna) It’s not a competition.
Got questions? Feel free to ask!
Tuesday Tips - Handling Objects — To show a character handling an object, think of merging the hand and object into one simple shape. Think of how you would wrap your fingers around it and how you would use it. Function is key! Norm #100tuesdaytipsvol2 #grizandnorm #handlingobjects #arttips #arttutorial
hi! you draw really nice hands, could you give some tips/make a tutorial?
sure!! this is quick and i dont have much of a method so?
i kinda start out with a box shape for the palm and make some tic marks to plan out where the fingers go
then box out some fingers
and darken out the details!
here’s some more examples too!! i always like to exaggerate the position of the thumb and pinky to make the pose of the hand more interesting?? give it more character? it’s a hand
Hands
As I do with most things, I draw hands from a series of gesture strokes that insinuate the pose and shape I want. Something I personally find very appealing about hands are all the joints, bends, and crooked bits so I start with those and build the rounder, meaty bits from there.
In the first two steps here if you just look at the individual strokes I’ve drawn, you can see they’re just some curves, really, that sketch out the shape of the hand, and I’m focusing on the joints and knuckles. (The fingertips in the second one are actually rly unnecessary and ugly to me haha – that’s usually the kind of thing I’d just throw down in step 3.)
And again below, just starting w/ some curves and squigglies to show the joints and knuckles:
These hands are by no means realistic or fully proportional but drawing’s supposed to be fun and these are really fun! I’m like, really not about that whole “draw a box and then the little tubes and those are the fingers” thing. It’s too technical and so much life gets lost when you sketch that way. Maybe it’s helpful for a pose you’re uncertain about but then just look at a photo or your own hand to see how things work, y’know?
Something else I’m really about is using shading and line to emphasize the bends and stuff even after I’ve got the hand down:
The first image here you can tell the fingers are bent, but they also look lumpy imo. To stylize further, I add some thin lines for the joints and fingernails, and then shade for some extra depth + to pronounce the foreshortening etc. (Fingers are so ugly from this angle! But we gotta draw them like this sometimes…)
Some examples where these extra lines assist in conveying the shape:
And shading:
(Bottom right is the same pose as a previous example which I didn’t realize till now sorry haha)
Some general tips:
- Use asymmetry!!! When the joints don’t line up exactly right, or you’ve drawn two hands doing the same thing but idk one’s curled a little bit more or the right pinky sticks out but the left doesn’t – these little touches make the drawing more dynamic, even if the general pose/concept is flat.
- Thumbs are really cool? They’re like trapezoidal. The same tapering thing kinda happens where the hand meets the wrist. A hand is like a big thumb
- Two things that a lot of beginner artists get wrong: which side the thumb is on (…always double-check…I still double-check sometimes too), and drawing the fingers straight instead of slightly bent when trying to draw a relaxed hand. Relaxed fingers curl! And this is much easier to draw imo than perfectly tense fingers
- Study your own hands and think about their shape. Part of developing a style + comfort with drawing a particular thing is how you choose to simplify the form thru line. I explained above that I focus on the joints and knuckles and seek to simplify those with curves and squiggles but maybe you’re more interested in a different aspect. (Like, you can see I don’t draw palms v much…that’s cuz I like knuckles haha)
Hope this is helpful/feel free to ask followup questions!
I’m sure someone’s already figured this out, but when this came to me yesterday night I was shook okay
Wrist in Motion Top Image Row 2: Left, Right Row 3: Left, Middle, Right Row 4: Disney’s Beast, Source Unknown Bottom Row: Left, Middle, Right (Source Unknown)
My first shot at creating a sort of tutorial/guide, telling how I do things. On this initial chapter we’re going over the handy matter of Hands. Not meaning to be an encyclopedic explanation, only showing my own methods and self-taught clues. Hoping somebody finds it useful! :3 I’ll do more if this one is received well. So let me know~
My thanks also to the supporters in my Patreon campaign, who helped me decide which themes to focus on for a start. And are actually allowing this to happen. :D Cheers!