Learn Techniques for How to Draw Hands!

Are you having difficulties learning how to draw hands? In this session, you will draw hands by simplify and studying it as much as possible so you don't fall into this trap that a lot of budding artists do!

Even before moving into drawing a hand, it is imperative that artists know and understand this crucial body part as the hands are a part of a critical equation to your characters emotions and stances.

In this lesson, you are going to look at the basic proportions of the hand.

Do not worry about foreshortening for now. Ideally, you will be concentrating on using basic line drawings with the focus primarily on getting the measurements correct.

Let's get started.

1. Studying the hand

One of the best ways to start off learning how to draw hands is just simply study it. If possible, medical books will help you look at the hand beyond the skin level.

What you want to look for is how the tendons are located. It is these tendons that will show through the skin and give your hands that much more realism. On top of that, it gives you positioning points to use.

how to draw hands

The second thing to look for is the muscles inside the hands. Think about how the muscles will collapse on each other when the hand opens up or creates a fist.

Of course, you also need to start looking and memorizing its proportions too. Look at each individual joint and think about how long it is compared to other joints.

2. Draw a hand using planes

After you have finished memorizing and picturing the hand mentally, the next step is to transfer it onto paper (or in this case, a digital canvas sketch).

With your digital art tools, begin to block out the elements of the hands. I suggest you draw hands starting from the palm.

Divide each section of the palm to see where each finger would be located on. Don't be afraid to use your own hands as reference points.

how to draw hands

You want to do at least two sketches: the hand with the palm facing up and the hand with the palm facing down.

That way, you can look at how each side differs from one another. A tip here is to concentrate on the tendons as that will help distinguish each side better.

3. Draw hands with proper proportions

In this section, you are going to divide the hands into more manageable parts and sections. Remember that the square is the basis for all measurements.

First, you are going to paint a square and then divide it into four quadrants. Resize your square to fill the hand from the tip of the middle finger to the bottom of the wrists.

how to draw hands

Placing the hand inside the four quadrants will help to illustrate motion. That is, should the hand twist from the pinkie and the thumb, it will not exceed the boundaries of the square.

As for the joints, use curved lines for measurements. This is not for motion of each individual finger. Rather, it is to align the joints together.

See how close you are to the hand presented in the square and make adjustments accordingly.

4. Drawing hands

Once you have a good mental understanding of hand proportions, it's time to start sketching out some drawings on your own from the guidelines given.

Use the previous plane drawings to help you out.

Always remember the tendons on the back of the hand. The tendons don't run all the way parallel with the fingers. Instead, it gathers at the middle at the end of the wrists.

how to draw hands

The only tendon that doesn't follow along with that route is the thumb. It has its own connection point that is different from the other four fingers.

As for the other side of the hand, the key here is making a bulge on the thumb portions while drawing a few horizontal age lines. The tendons on this side are mostly seen at the bottom of the wrists.

Once you are comfortable with this simple proportional drawing of the hands, you can move on to making more complicated drawings that include foreshortening, perspective, and closed hand postures.

I hope you enjoy this introduction on how to draw hands. Next, we are going to look at variations of the hand and how it will look like in different perspectives. I look forward to your progress on your artworks through this site's gallery. Keep up the good work!