How to draw a hand

Besides the face, the hands are another part of the body that is difficult to draw. Twenty-seven bones, muscles, tendons … The hand can adopt infinite positions. To learn how to draw a realistic hand , you have to practice. First, by looking at the anatomy of the hand, you will be able to draw similar hands right away.

From then on, if you want to draw a realistic hand, you will have to perfect your drawing techniques to reproduce the details.

• First  step:  Focus on drawing an open hand and draw simple geometric shapes to reproduce the palm and fingers. Forget about the thumb for now. Divide the palm with a vertical line between the middle and ring fingers.
• Second  step:  define the length of the fingers and the positioning of the joints. Each finger has three phalanges, except the thumb, which has only two.
• Third  step:  add the thumb to the drawing, starting from the base of the palm.

The main lines of the hand are already done. Let’s move on to the details. Refine the shape of the fingers, taking into account the joints and add the nails if you have chosen to draw the back of the hand. If, on the other hand, you draw the palm, make all the lines that are on it.

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Some tips to draw a hand well  :

• Never forget that the fingers are not flat, they are cylindrical;
• Give the nails a rounded shape to better work the volume of the fingers;
• The muscles of the palm form bumps and hollows. Work the shadows;
• Hand lines should be drawn as they appear. They are not linear; draw them with small cross strokes.

If you want to draw comic or manga characters, working your hands is also important. More stylized and with less details, they must be well designed and respect proportions. The hands convey a great deal of information in the drawing.