Hand Tutorial Part One

Introduction

To begin with, hands cause problems for even the best of people (and I do not, by any means, reach their calibre in the slightest). But here, I will try to give some hints as to how to successfully draw a hand.

Different people, different hands.

Everyone has different hands - some have small hands with short stubby fingers, others have huge hands with blocky fingers. The point here is that no hand is alike. Even if you compare you own hands, you will detect slight differences.

There ARE, however, trends between sex, build, and occupation when one examines hands.

1) Men tend to have larger hands, while women usually have small hands

2) People with greater physical stature usually have larger hands than those who are generally small or average in stature.

3) People who work in more physically intensive jobs ALWAYS have larger hands as compared to people who work in less physically demanding jobs.

The Average Hand

Let's focus on the average hand - nothing unique, no distinguishing marks for now.

Not too spectacular, eh? Non-specialized, very boring position. Nevertheless, it's useful for us to see the outstretched hand in order to see how each finger relates to the others proportionwise.

Here, I've added lines showing where the knuckles and other joints normally occur (red lines) as well as lines comparing relative height of each finger and thumb (blue lines). Notice that these heights are generally true for most hands. In order of decreasing height - middle finger, ring finger (v), index finger (v), pinky finger, thumb. ((v) means variable. Depending on person, ring finger may be longer than index finger, or vice versa - but they are always shorter than the middle finger and longer than the pinky).

Try to keep these proportions in mind when drawing your hands - no matter the position. Also pay close attention to the length of each joint, as depicted by the curved lines. Not only are they important in relaxed hands, but in tightly clenched fists as well.

end of part 1

Please proceed to part 2