How to draw hands

ZOMBIE USER 12729 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 12729** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 12:56 pm

How do you exactly draw hands for people? I know practice makes perfect, but I need to know how to practice drawing them.

Karlie · Post by **Karlie** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 2:05 pm

the best way i've found to learn to draw anything (hands especaly)
hold up your left hand (or right hand if you're left handed) look at it, and draw it.
simple, but it really helps,.

ZOMBIE USER 12729 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 12729** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 4:50 pm

Not a bad idea. I have tried it though I think. I'll try it. Thanks. Anyone else got any tips?

Electronblues · Post by **Electronblues** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 8:59 pm

Some positions are really difficult to get your own hand into for drawing, so another option is to find pictures of hands in interesting positions in pictures, mangas, or animes. Then you try to draw them yourself, while you study the example in front of you. You could probably find some great pictures online even, if you don't have any that already come to mind. Sometimes it's easier to see what hands should look like in drawings done by other artists, so a search for art tutorials on the net could turn up some good sources.

ZOMBIE USER 12729 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 12729** » Sat Dec 07, 2002 7:01 pm

Uh no web cam. but thanks for the tips. Anyone else got any?

ZOMBIE USER 11268 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 11268** » Sun Dec 08, 2002 4:44 pm

For my more realistic drawings, I always have a couple of Spiegal catalogs by my desk. They're great; the jewelry section always has vast pictures of hands, the appliance section has some comptemporary backgrounds, and the lingerie section... um.... the clothes section has some modern hairstyles.

I'm pretty sure they're free... and you only need one or two. Look around and they'll be easy enough to find.

And they're #*@# huge.

-chris 'c'

RebLaw · Post by **RebLaw** » Mon Dec 09, 2002 5:57 pm

I found a very cool tutorial...

http://pillarsoffaith.keenspace.com/tutorial.html

there was another site that had you draw a box and then five lines coming out of the box at different angles centered in the back of the box 0.o;; I'm not good at describing it

oh well

RebLaw

Taiwanimation · Post by **Taiwanimation** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 1:49 am

drink some household chemicals and/or move to new jersey and grow an extra hand.

Gothboy · Post by **Gothboy** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 2:47 am

Everyone sucks at drawing hands. That's because they're really hard to draw. I usually 'suggest' rather than draw them, which means all my characters wear mittens.

Note: hands are harder to draw in certain positions and from certain angles than others. Direct your characters to move in such a way that their hands are easy to draw.

For more intelligent solutions to everyday problems: http://gothboymo.keenspace.com

Shane B · Post by **Shane B** » Tue Dec 17, 2002 9:30 am

Break the hand down into simple parts: joints, ridges, etc. Don't focus on being too real, realism is overrated. Just go for what looks good, because if it looks too real it might just turn out being ugly. Don't use your hand for reference for everyone, especially if you have big, meaty man-hands, because then all your women will be freaky. I usually drow a polygon in the rough shape of the back of a hand then draw circles to represent the joints and lines to represent the actual fingers, always being careful to keep the proportions right, then I fill in the rest of the space with actual drawing and finish with whatever else the hand needs. This takes a lot of time. I don't always take this much time to draw the hands, so I usually over-simplify them by not giving characters individual fingers. The easiest solution is mittens and keeping the hands out of the panel by giving your characters long arms.

ZOMBIE USER 12729 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 12729** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 6:58 am

Taiwanimation wrote:drink some household chemicals and/or move to new jersey and grow an extra hand.

Well Taiwanimation, I'm not in to becoming a mutant. And besides I already live in Jersey. Oops! Forget I said that. I wasn't supposed to. I live in a floating kingdom high above the earth. I get on the internet by satelite.

Gothboy · Post by **Gothboy** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 2:30 am

Shane B wrote: The easiest solution is (...) keeping the hands out of the panel by giving your characters long arms.

Don't do that. They can tell.

Smoot · Post by **Smoot** » Thu May 29, 2003 12:30 pm

i remember doing a whole study on hands in highschool for my portfolio ... drawing them in pencil, charcoal, pastels, purely in contour lines (so it looked kinda like a map), painting them, and i even sculpted one. they all looked really good an handish.

and i still suck at drawing hands.

i find the easiest thing, is if i can't use my left hand as a reference, i take a picture with my webcamera, and use that. that way, you have a constant un-moving reference that is exactly as you want it (of course, if you need both hands, you need to master clicking the mouse with your foot). and if you're having a -lot- of trouble still, you can print it out, and semi-trace the shape of it. the rest is just filling in the lines.

of course.... this is useless if you don't have a web cammy >.<