How To Draw Hands

Lots of different ways in drawing a hand are used by many artists such as animators to convey feeling on their works. If you had tried it yourself and found some difficulties then this is the right time for you to focus on practicing how it is done.

“How to draw hands?” is a question that has lots of answers. In drawing hands you must first consider the genre of your human character, the gender and age. A lady has a smaller and feminine hands compared to that of the gentleman’s. On the other hand children’s have most likely common shapes.

A basic but very effective way for beginners is to give attention in drawing their own hands. A step by step procedure is provided below to teach you how to do it.

Drawing the Wrist and Palm

First, draw an oval that size-up your palm as how big or wide you want it to appear in your drawing and allocate a point that will serve as the anchor point  on the lower part of the oval. This anchor point will be used for the fingers. Radiate five lines from the anchor point, one for each finger. The line that extends almost twice as the length of the oval and which is the longest will be the middle finger. Then an arc is drawn on the tip of the middle finger that will determine the length of the remaining fingers. Draw two more arcs that will be our knuckles for the fingers. Unlike the others, the thumb has its third knuckles hidden inside the palm and that makes it look shorter than the others.  

Adding Flesh and skin

Adding the flesh on your layout for the final appearance of the hand will have its big role. It will give the physical appearance and the nature of the character that is to be drawn. The fingers become a little bit narrow as it approaches the curve end. Apart from the other fingers the thumb has its separate axis and has a wider cross-sectional area compared to the others.  

Finishing Off your Drawing

After the previous steps, the last thing you will do is to erase all the guidelines and other exceeding lines you had made. If you think what you did is correct, then add more details on your hand by shading some parts exposing the muscles. Add skin creases at the knuckles and along the palm. And if you like, you may also add small visible vein underneath the skin. There you have it, your hand is already done.  

Despite of what manner a hand is being presented or drawn, it is always important to stick on the basic structure of the human hand. Now that you are able to draw these structures, try to practice doing other situation to improve more your skills. They say that one can distinguish a skilled artist from a beginner on how they draw human hands. Then I say you are not far from being an expert.