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DokiDokiTsuna
Dec '20

So the series begins…the focus of these threads will be about sharing tips and hints, as usual. Everyone’s perspective is limited, mine included, so as much talking as I’m gonna do, it’d be great if other people who feel confident in these areas or just know a cool trick to share would help fill in the gaps.

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As I said, I love drawing hands~. ^^ My main problem right now is not having a big enough repertoire of cool poses to experiment with…I may have to try doing studies. But let’s start with what I already know.

So, fundamentals: y’all know what a hand looks like. But often what separates a good drawing from a great drawing is knowing how a hand moves.

Once upon a time I saw an interesting tutorial on Twitter that described the fingers as being tied together by strings…if you move any finger (even the thumb) far enough, eventually another finger will move with it; they aren’t independent.

The thumb has the most range; then comes the index finger, the ring finger, the middle finger, then finally the pinky…on my hand, at least, it can’t even fold forward without dragging the ring finger with it, unless the thumb holds it down.
Remembering this order of freedom (fingers with more range tend to separate from the others more often) and learning which fingers tend to move with which will help you design more lifelike hand gestures.

Here’s an example:

This is the same character, but they’re actually two different images. ^^; Coincidentally, I gave her the same gesture with her free hand in both, but I really think the rock-covered one looks more natural, due to the separation of the fingers.

Another thing to pay attention to is the folding of the palm, which is basically a little fleshy pillow with an indentation in the middle. I usually divide it up like this:

Often I just fuse the purple and green sections together, since there’s not a lot of motion there in most gestures…but you should keep in mind that they are kinda separate.

So this helps when designing more complex hand gestures, like ones that are supposed to look all flowy and fluid, or ones in which one hand interacts with another. If you’re really confused about where to place the fingers, oftentimes just correctly arranging the sections of the palm that correspond to each (purple=pinky+ring, red=middle+index, blue=thumb) will give you a good idea of how to finish the rest of the hand.

One last thing I’d like to mention: hands ARE weird. They look weird. Take a look at your own hand; do a few of the more awkward poses in front of your face and imagine them rendered in 2D. It’s gonna be weird!
The sooner you can accept that weird is a given, the sooner you can just focus on making your hands look nice and make sense. ^^

The best way to get better at this, of course, is to copy hands, and lots of them. And the simpler the better: if you know any artists who do really nice-looking cartoon hands (I’m talking noodle fingers, even) try to study from them, too, not just from photo references.
What good will that do? Well, it’ll teach you shortcuts for drawing gestures from someone who’s already figured them out. ^^
Cartoonists naturally exaggerate details that are subtle IRL, and simplify structures that are complex IRL: in short, they’re great artists to learn things from, even if that’s not the art style you prefer. Take advantage of this!

I’m gonna leave you with some of my favorite hands I’ve drawn recently: if you have any questions about them, or questions/comments in general, just say so. :9

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BrambleberrySquirrel
Dec '20

Wow thank you this is super helpful and I have never seen any of this information before. I have a more fluid cartoony style, but this will really help me in the future. Especially the part about dividing the palm into semi-independent quadrants. Bookmarking this thread for future use!

BrambleberrySquirrel
Dec '20

I'd love to contribute to this, but I feel like the things I know enough about to do a tutorial for are either really minor (like drawing tongues) or real niche and related to the sorts of art I do. I basically exclusively draw furry stuff. If anyone is interested in how to draw animal person heads in a way that converts 3D muzzles/snouts into a 2D space I think I can try my hand at an explainer.

rajillustration
Dec '20

Some more tips:

-your hands can be roughly the same length as your chin to your hairline, and this is the recommended length for drawing the beauty standard--thing is, people come with different handshapes. I personally have small hands, so my hand only goes from my chin to my eyebrows. In romance comics, people tend to have honkin long delicate hands. You can exaggerate quite a bit, but generally--aim for chin to forehead.

-albinus on anatomy has some pretty great studies of what the hell those bones are doing

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So if you want to do more realistic hands, take the time to look at anatomy of the hand--there's a bunch of muscles and bones in there that are very close to the skin, and the only way to really internalize how to draw them them is to know they exist by studying anatomy. It's a lot of anatomy, but it's just so, so beneficial to know the shape of those bones and the position of those muscles.

-If you look at the side of your wrist (at the pinky side), there's a bump there from your bone. I don't remember what that point is called but I believe it's part of your ulna. Depending on whether your hand is twisted out or in (you can twist your own hand right now to test) that ulna bone twists right round and pokes out, right there at the wrist. There's nothing better than drawing that bump correctly. Feels masterful. When it's in a relaxed position--it is no longer poking out (however, you can still draw it, just don't go crazy)

-Your two middle fingers have a harder time moving independently of eachother compared to your other fingers. So, we usually draw them touching, and if you let your hand relax, you may notice that those middle fingers are just...touching, or at least closer together. So, in cartoons when we draw four fingered people instead of five fingered, we generally condense the placement of the middle fingers to one.

-When doing foreshortening, think of it like stacking. You want to see all the pieces that are being stacked. All the joints of the hand, the wrist, the elbow, the shoulder, the body--when you drop out a piece (even if it is that way in your photo reference) you'll have a much harder time. That, and when you do foreshortening, don't ever make your hand compete in importance with the body. Make it your focal point, so the eye goes HAND and then eventually goes to the rest of the scene. If the body has too much emphasis you'll have jank foreshortening.

Like Yugioh's a mess but damn that one storyboarder they had did really good hands because the whole show was card based and you had to look at hands constantly. so it's actually a pretty good source of well drawn hands to study (if you get the well drawn episodes. It's an anime. You get a bunch of artists working on it and so some look like garbage) And you bet I capped a couple just to store for later reference because some of that foreshortening was mind boggling for...what it was.


I think this same storyboarder/animator also worked on FLCL? I'd have to look it up. But you can kinda see what I'm saying about the foreshortening--it's about the stacking, and making sure that you don't have two warring focal points. Instead you start at the hand, and naturally gliiiide down to the rest, no matter what direction the foreshortening is.

Foreshortening is still always a gamble but when it hits good it's so good.

Lady_T_Musings
Dec '20

This is mad crazy legit. Folks laugh at the ridiculous drama the show can ham up, but they really knew how to play some angles in that anime.

Black_Conscious
Dec '20

I always have a problem of drawing hands whether it will be the hand/fingers moving in a certain direction or just a plain simple wave (but its more easier ), so I leave them to the end of my drawings, I had never thought at looking at hands in a certain way like what you do, but I'll think of using the method whenever I draw hands.

I never talk about hands this much.. :
This a lot of hands talkin :sweat_02:

Darth_Biomech
Dec '20

A picture is a thousand words, so I'll just post a couple that I personally found very helpful and saved.

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