What are your methods for drawing hands and feet?

[Demy]

My question is exactly what the title says.

https://line-of-action.com/practice-tools/hands-feet-practice/

The reason I am asking is because I decided to use this part of the site to practice drawing hands and feet. I have a way of doing it, but it I wouldn't be able to draw something that looks like a decent gesture on anything below 5 minutes. Though maybe that doesn't matter since its just practice after all.

Since this is sort of a site for gesture drawing I was wondering how you guys would approach drawing these parts of the human body in a timer. It doesn't hurt to ask people for advice right?

Edit: Or do I need to practice more to get faster at drawing hands and feet? Well if so, I'd appreciate if you told me your methods for doing so anyway. I'd probably learn something from them.

[thekinginthesun]

I would actually recommend quite the opposite.

Don't avoid hands or feet. They may seem evil, but you can't improve without work.

Just do it. And again. And again. And if you find yourself trying to draw a difficult hand/foot position/gesture, look for references. You can even take pics of your own hand/foot. Just don't give up. Don't change the gesture just because it's difficult.

That's why I think the best way to improve is making comics.

That's how I did it, anyway. Hope it helped D:

[Demy]

Oh I never said I would avoid hands and feet. You're probably talking to the other guy.

Why do you think comics are the best way to improve by the way?

[thekinginthesun]

Yeah, yeah, I was!

'Cause then you'd have plenty of different interactions, angles, and gestures to draw!

I made more improvement in the last few months while working on my own comic than I ever did before.

[shazzbaa]

Why do you think comics are the best way to improve by the way?

Comics require you to draw a thing over and over and over again! Every time your characters do something, you have to figure out how to draw that thing, so comics can end up being a great way to push yourself and practice over and over again.

I honestly couldn't tell you how I'd approach this off the top of my head, so I tried out some 30 second poses real quick:

You can kinda see that I tend to have a rough pentagon-ish shape that is the palm, but past that a lot of the shapes depend on the pose of the hands.

The thing with gesture drawing is that (a) you're not trying to get a finished drawing, you're trying to capture the basic motion of the figure and (b) when you're first doing gesture stuff, a LOT of your early gesture drawings, especially quick ones, are going to feel like squiggly garbage. But it's good practice to not get caught up in the details, but to find the most important overall shapes and motion to feel that pose when you don't have time to get all the details.

When we used to do gesture drawing in class, a lot of times we'd start with some really quick gestures, then build into longer and longer times -- training us how to approach drawing a figure with a gestural mindset. If we have 5 minutes to draw a hand, we might get into the bad habit of drawing one finger and getting it right, and then the next finger, and really losing the energy of the hand as a whole. But if you start out trying to capture the entire hand in 30 seconds, that sort of trains you so that when you bump your time up to 1 minute, you spend the first 30 seconds trying to quickly capture the pose and motion of the hand, and then the rest of your 1 minute refining that quick gesture and building the details into the pose.

So, think of it that way -- quick gestures aren't so much about the finished product, but about training your hand and your brain. It's normal to not be able to "finish" in time, but trying to get as much important information as you can down on paper helps your brain learn how to capture what's important.

[spadesart]

and im not very good at bare feet but

idk why it recorded my pointer like that follow the circle pointer instead hgfdfhj

[J.Z.Castillo]

Pretty much this is how I do it. Make a square/trapezoid shape for the palm, an oval for that meaty part where the thumb connects with the hand, and then some small circles for the knuckles. Once I have that I start adding fingers and tweaking them around if I have to.

This is a pretty simple tutorial, when I first started using this method I would make lines to make the fingers and then add more circles where the joints go. The more you practice the less steps you have to make.

[zilo]

I tend to work in three stages.

1: The composition, the hand is very loosely drawn, it's a quick way to get a feel for the motion and pose of it.
2: I try to simplify the shapes and make it readable
3: Lineart

I really like this tutorial, he's also pretty funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzl3eaxAJpo&t=72s

[edmourabarbosa]

My advice for hands & feet is the same to everything you'll ever want to draw: get a reference and COPY THE HELL OUT OF IT. Eventually it'll get easier.
If you're having difficulties to draw aceptable hands&feet, don't do those kind of timed exercises. They are best for when you want to improve gesture, flow and speed. If you can't even draw something good in 30 minutes, don't expect something different in 5 min.

[AlkseeyaKC]

mmm feet.... I don't know why, but I like drawing feet. XD Not so good on hands though, I'll have to study what others post here. Here is me sketching some feets.

Basically the heal is a ball and the front part is more like a rounded cone kind of thing. But I use a different shape more like the hand when drawing the bottom. It helps to look and study real feets to get the basic shapes down.

[Demy]

Everyone, thank you for all of your advice. I think this will all help me improve at drawing hands and feet.

It would also probably help to study hand and feet anatomy.