Drawing Hands Part 1: Hand Anatomy

The basics of how the hand works.

Courtesy of Cassandra Calin.

Why are hands so hard to draw? It’s because they can do so many things: grasp a cup of coffee, make a fist or a peace sign or the Vulcan sign. They can point, scratch … well, you get the idea. I mean, you have them. And while it’s helpful for make us more evolved than dogs or giraffes, this versatility makes them arguably the hardest thing for comic artists to master.

This is part one of a series in which I’ll discuss how to draw hands and gestures. It pays off to get good at drawing them, and I’ll share some tips that I’ve picked up along the way.

First, the nice thing about hands is that they you hav e them right in front of you. It’s not like drawing your rear end which you can never really see. You can make your hands do things that you need to draw them doing. With a phone, you can capture them in all sorts of positions for reference.

But you need to know what you’re looking at. So here are some pictures of my hand with a few details pointed out (if I had thought about it, I might have gotten a manicure before I snapped these. Forgive me).

So first off, notice that your palm is by and large a square.

Also, you’ll notice that your fingers are NOT the same length, with the pinky being the shortest, and your middle finger being the longest. This makes a nice curve. Your ring finger and index finger are not the same length, but you can treat them as if they are. Your thumb comes out from the corner of the box I drew before, and it is roughly the length of those two fingers.

The length of your fingers as a group is slightly shorter than your palm. And your thumb is slightly shorter than the width of your palm.

If you curl your fingers they will come to the middle of your palm.

Your thumb can’t move directly across the palm. It moves diagonally. This is important for placing the thumb properly in drawings.

There are two fleshly parts of your palm that you’'ll want to know about. And there’s a line across your palm that you’ll see if you cup your palms that you’ll add to your drawings too.

If you have more parts of the hand anatomy that you find helpful to know, let me know! I’ll add them to the post!

So why can’t you just go in and starting drawing hands without a knowledge of anatomy? Well, you can, of course. But in order to draw things cartoony, you have to know how they work in real life. And one of the best things you can do is try to draw your own hand realistically, but don’t spend too much time on it - just a few five minute sketches will do. The trick is get used to how hands move so that you don’t have to think about them while you draw them. You won’t be using every wrinkle, of course, but good drawing is more about learning to see.

Up next: my journey drawing hands and my hand inspirations.