Meat-hooks

[Thankfully Yours]

hi, I have been drawing all my life and have been very inspired by comic books and other graphic portrayals of the human form and as such have been a practitioner in that art form for a while. dynamic figures; no problem, anatomy; spot-on, facial expressions; fine, however hands have been a problem for rendering for quite some time. I use references for hands, but thats it and everytime i do a hand it comes out as an over-laboured boxing mit. I would post some images, but i havent a scanner at this time. I was wondering if any of you pros have little tricks you use to make drawing hands any easier, any and all ideas are welcom. just assume i draw the worst hand you could imagine please. thank you.

[Gregory Wohlwend]

i'm no pro but...

try breaking the hand down to basic shapes. treat the palm as one box and the four fingers as another box and the thumb as one or maybe two boxes. if you're getting boxing mits, that's not neccessarily a bad thing as far as gesture work is concerned.

the strategy should go from drawing the entire shape within 10 seconds, don't try and contour trace the outline or anything, get teh framework together lightly and then work around the framework using your eye to get some of the finer curves and nuances of the hand down.

again, i'm no expert, but perhaps a few tips to get you started until some of the better artists swing by.