How To Draw Hands Proportions

Lately I gave you several hints on how to draw hands. Looks like a lot of of my readers went through these hints and ask now for additional material. Especially they demanded me to go into detail about drawing hands. So let us have a look at it.

While drawing hands, the largest obstruction are the proportions of all the fingers and small details. In this article I will reveal you the crucial details you need to pay attention to for perfect drawings.

When drawing a relaxed hand, you should think of the palm as a square and then draw the fingers accordingly. In this case the middle finger is around as long as the palm (with few deviances depending upon the single digit’s dimensions and its position – think of the “magic trick” in my last article on drawing hands).

As longest finger the middle finger is also a good reference for understanding the proportions of all other fingers:

The little finger is about two thirds to three fourths of the middle finger

The ring finger and the index digit are ever longer than the small finger and littler than the middle finger.

Only the exact sizings deviate – some people’s ring fingers and index fingers are evenly long, others have longer ring fingers, others have longer index fingers. I’ve even heard of people making jokes by deducing mental or physical abilities from the lengths of index finger and ring finger. Fortunately my are both equally long so I am on the safe side

Thanks to the differing lengths of the fingers the fingertips form a c-shaped curve when dwelling next to each other.

Somethingwn akin is true for the fingers’ roots: the index finger’s and the middle finger’s root are topmost, the other fingers’ roots are a little bit lower so the finger roots form a curve that bows downwardly, too. And the knuckles build the same curve, naturally.

Now that we’ve added every single of the fingers, let us look at the thumb. Unlike the other fingers it is attached to the side of the palm. Its root occupies the lower one-half of the hands side. Having only two joints it has also more muscular tissue, mass and strength.

Using these instructions you’re able to sketch the primary structure of any hand you want to depict. But when completing this first draft, please keep in mind: altho I wrote of squares and lengths etc., the hand’s shape isn’t precisely geometrical.

There should be no hard margins or unbent lines in your drawing. The muscles and flesh on the hand’s bones build round and voluminous forms. Heighten these forms by introducing strong shading. See where darks form on your hand and add these shadings accordingly.

Significant: The leaner a hand is, the less mass the drawing should convey. So adapt the strength and shadow of shadings accordingly. Also you need to adjust the shading if the hand is very athletic (e.g. hands of bodybuilders or sportsmen) and for very fleshy hands that have only few lines and crinkles in the skin.

Hope these instructions serve you to draft better hands from now on.

By :  Ruediger Schmidt