Drawing Hands

[DaVideoGamer]

Hi!
Whenever I draw, hands always seems to mess me up, especially when I have to draw them from the front angle.

DOes anyone have any tips to help me out?

Thanks!

[J Wilson]

My only tip is just a generally good one for drawing complex things. Break it down into parts and draw the biggest parts first.

You may be tempted to draw fingers as cylinders, but I find it easier to think of them as boxes with top/side/bottom planes clearly defined. You'll eventually round them out again somewhat, but keeping those planes more or less intact makes it easier to understand what they are doing.

[Ian Mack]

"The teacher is as a needle, the disicple a thread. You must practice constantly." - Musashi

Meaning. Find a teacher. Your options are to buy a book, Hogarth has some good books on drawing hands. Or do a search through CA.org to see what other people have done.

Then draw hands constantly. If you can fill ten pages with hands and thoughts about hands in the next two weeks, you will improve greatly.

[Shmaba]

fill up pages in your sketchbook with just hands in different positions and angles. draw them from life and play around with ideas on how they can be structured (like what J Wilson above me said) try breaking them down into shapes, or just make an outline contour of the hand, find something that works. It's important to think about what it is about the hand that makes it look like one (and same goes for everything else you draw :P)

[Farvus]

Look what Andrew Loomis says here:

http://www.fineart.sk/photos/loomis_heads/133.JPG

[Alex Chow]

Draw with one hand. Use the other for reference. Practice like there's no tomorrow.

[PieterV]

Practice drawing your own, do dozens of studies. You can use a mirror to draw practically every possible position.
Try to break down the hand in simple interlocking shapes at first, try to think of the shape of the palm first, this is the major mass where the fingers are attached to.
Memorize all the proportions (should be easy, just look at your own hand).
They're difficult at first, but they get allot easier with practice.

[Black Spot]

I’ve got double-jointed thumbs. It makes hand studies interesting.

[Atlantis]

I think Bridgeman is the way to go, here. His structural approach is especially helpful in the context of complex, flexible parts of the anatomy like hands and feet. Plus, he has an entire book dedicated to the subject.

[Brashen]

Well as J willson already pointed out, breaking down the hands to simple geometric forms is probably the easiest way to start out a hand but with time and practice you'll come to figure out a way of your own of how to draw them.

I suggest looking at master paintings such as William Beuagerau and try replicating their paintings!!