How to Draw Hands and Fingers
Hey guys! Today’s tutorial is all about how to draw hands and fingers, and I am gonna make it easy.
Or, as easy as possible!
We all know drawing hands and fingers can be a challenge (myself included), and as artists, we JUST need it to be easier. Especially for those of us just getting started drawing.
Some things we will go over in this lesson will be…
- How to draw the hand shape
- How to draw hands without them looking scary
- How the fingers bend and move
This will all be easy to learn, basic, plain English steps.
Let’s get started!
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How to draw hands and the hand shape
In the next several pictures, I am going to teach you how to draw a basic open hand, palm out.
The palm is kind of a mix between a circle and a square.
The inside of the hand (between the index finger and thumb) is flat, while underneath the thumb, the outer blade of the hand is rounded.
Extend lines where you want to fingers along the top of the hand, and place the line for the thumb.
Here, I added the outline of the wrist and circled where the finger joints will start.
This is an important piece to start with.
If you feel your own hand, you can feel these joints below your fingers on the inside of your hand.
We won’t see these joints when the image is finished, but it’s important to draw them to get a good base of how thick the fingers are.
Next, we will first draw the rest of the finger joints, and start outlining the fingers and thumb.
Let’s talk about the joints of the fingers.
Each finger has three joints, including the first ones we drew.
These joints should be equal distance apart, leaving room at the ends for the fingertips above the joints.
After finding the joints, we can begin outlining the fingers.
If you are drawing on your computer like me (or if you have paint), you can begin coloring the hand.
I have an even more detailed tutorial featured below on how to texture, shade, and paint skin, specifically about this lesson!
It’s available to my Champion and Hero Tier Patrons on Patreon.
Click the image below to check it out!
If you want to keep learning about how hands move and bend, keep reading!
How to draw hands without them looking scary…
I think the trickiest thing about drawing hands is the movement.
Have you ever started drawing a hand and it looked like it should belong to some scary monster instead of a human?
Well, I definitely have.
The key is to be messy and sloppy, and just sketch it out first.
If you want to get hand movement right, you need to sketch.
What my art teacher would always say is that you couldn’t erase until you had the picture to way you wanted it.
No erasing till it’s done.
This was really helpful advice because erasing what you’ve already sketched is not only frustrating, but it makes you lose sight of the posture you’re wanting to draw.
How the fingers bend and move
Let’s briefly talk about the movement of the fingers and how the fingers bend naturally.
Let’s do a quick exercise!
Stretch your arm out in front of you and look at your hand.
Now, spread your fingers apart as wide as you can.
There is only so far our fingers can reach, but I think a lot of times when we are drawing hands, we can forget this, and accidentally make jello-fingers.
This is where the hand looks fine, but the fingers look very broken or stretched out.
Aside from side-to-side, fingers bend forwards.
Naturally, our fingers want to stay at a slight bend, and curl inward.
Look at your own hand at rest and you will notice it probably doesn’t lay flat without you forcing it.
When drawing, it’s important to remember this!
It’s too easy to forget, and draw a character’s arms hanging down by their sides with straight, alert hands.
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