Dinamic Organic Hands! Practice Tip + Spreedsheet

Why is drawing hands so hard? I know, right... there are too many ways to mess up. In my experience, everyone develops their own method for drawing hands, so in today's post, I wanted to share a little practice that started with a few sketches and evolved into a frame-by-frame animation.

The two most common hand gestures in my characters are 'holding' and 'open' hands. I began the practice by simply drawing one or two hands, and because I wanted to explore different perspectives, I decided to take a frame-by-frame approach. This means that every new frame or layer is a continuation of the previous hand, but with slight changes, either from closed to open or by simply changing the perspective.

The trick to creating organic-looking hands for me is not to use any form of guide but to make loose, curved lines.

Notice how most of the sketches are very loose and messy. This is because I don't aim for a perfect-looking sketch but instead have several attempts, each one different from the others. If you try this and struggle to get the right proportions, it's because positioning fingers and other aspects of the hands requires some level of spatial awareness. This is something you build by looking at hands (for instance, your own) and trying to guess (without tracing) the shape and silhouette with lines on a canvas.

If you want to try this same type of practice, watch the video for more insights and try to come up with hands from your imagination or simply use your own hand to create a few key frames. Ideally, you should guess as much as you can, regardless of your skill level. You might find yourself a bit off when trying this, but that makes total sense in the beginning.

Process!: https://youtu.be/_RhsmxW6vZk

If you want to try using different references beyond your hand, perhaps holding props, here are some links:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/369365606912188011/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/9922061669416818/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1618549862022526/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/140806232569219/

If you're still struggling to get the right proportions, a long time ago I created a very simple tutorial for hands and other body parts. It might be a bit challenging to make them look organic, but it's a good starting point for beginners in anatomy. For more, unlock past content!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/dynamic-anatomy-89964661

Thank you so much for your support!