Hey! I just found your art and I adore it! I don't mean to be a bother, but how do you draw hands? They're so amazing and I struggle a lot with them!
Hello there, thank you so much~! It's no bother at all, sorry it took me a little while to respond (I came down with a cold and wanted to reply properly!), but check under the cut for a quick rundown on how I do hands and some general tips!
So I generally draw hands in four steps. First, I draw the block of the palm (which depending on the angle of the hand will typically be either a squarish shape or a wedge shape). Then I place the MEAT, that good chunk that's basically part of the thumb, if it's visible for the pose.
Next is the fingers. If the knuckles will be visible I usually circle in a KNUCKLE GUIDE, it helps me space out the fingers, follow the curve of the hand, and can sometimes make some nice shapes for me. As for the fingers themselves, I'll either just draw straight lines to start, or come in with big blocky shapes. I've found sometimes it's easier to erase the shape of the fingers than to draw them outright, especially in the sketch phase where I use thicker brushes (on purpose, so I don't worry about detail too much). That's my usual process!
I make frequent use of reference - normally I use my own hands. Either looking at them as is or taking a picture, I do both all the time
working digitally is GREAT for learning to draw something you struggle with, especially hands. sometimes I'll draw them very large on purpose and then shrink them down, or I'll zoom in while I draw them. big hands.
looking at how other artists draw hands can be just as helpful as looking at real-life reference, especially if you have a more "pushed" style
when drawing complicated hand gestures, I usually stick to simple shapes (at least for the sketch phase), because then I can at least get the idea down.
using the eraser or a brush on transparency to find the shapes of the fingers for you is a gamechanger, erasing can be drawing too!
I let the character decide the finger and hand shape
knuckles still don't make much sense to me (that's why I often use a KNUCKLE GUIDE, sometimes I'll just partially erase the circles to make the knuckle shape for me and call it good)
Nothing...hugely revelatory. Hands can be pretty intimidating, they're comparatively small and full of bits and bends...and you can always just kind of tell when a hand isn't "drawn right". Practicing drawing singular hands on a larger scale really helped me, as well as focusing on "shapes" over "details".
One thing I've been really trying to remind myself of lately is that I can draw things how I WANT them to look instead of how I think they SHOULD look; looking good or cool vs "right" or "correct". This is especially helpful with drawing hands, as they can be so expressive and articulate and weird in their own right, that ignoring technical correctness in favor of GOOD SHAPE, LOOKS COOL can really help you land somewhere a bit more satisfying.
