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How to Draw a Hand Demo

Step-by-Step Process of Making Realistic Fingers and Palms

Feb 28, 2009 Alina Bradford

Hands are one of the most feared parts of the body to draw. This is because they are made up of complex three-dimensional shapes.

Once broken down into these simple shapes and then broken even further down into lines, hands can actually be drawn with ease. This step-by-step drawing demo will show aspiring hand artists how to simplify the hand to the point that it is no longer a mystery, but a joy to draw.

Lines, Lines and More Lines

The first step of learning to draw hands is finding good reference photos. The artist should make sure the photo is clear and has plenty of contrast.

Next, on a piece of paper, the artist should draw the contour lines of the hands. These lines don’t have to be exact and they shouldn’t be detailed. The lines should mimic the ridges of the knuckles and how the outer lines of the fingers interact. See Example One for a demonstration of the contour lines.

Refining the Lines

After the contour lines have been drawn, the artist should start drawing the thumbs around their contour lines. Thumbs are nothing more than three-dimensional tubes that connect to a hand. Remembering this makes them much easier to draw. See Example Two for a visual demonstration.

The artist can then go on to drawing the fingers by adding to the contour lines. Each finger has three knuckles, so the artist should remember to draw these in instead of making the finger a solid, unbendable mass. See Example Three.

Adding Detail

In Example Four, detail is added by drawing in the wrinkles of the fingers. Wrinkles are drawn as v-shapes in the crooks of the finger and hand.

To finish the finger, the artist erases the thumb contour lines and adds lines in the knuckles and then adds the fingernails.

The lines on the knuckles are simply three lines that curve around the knuckle to indicate the extra skin at the knuckle.

Fingernails are drawn by drawing a u-shape at the tip of the finger and then closing the ‘u’ with a straight or curved line at the top.

To learn more about drawing the details of the hand see the article How to Draw Parts of the Hand.

Shading adds depth to the finger. The darker shaded areas should be drawn around where the fingers meet and overlap. The lighter areas should be on top of the hands where they are closer to the light.

Using these steps should simplify any hand drawing that an artist comes across in their career.

The copyright of the article How to Draw a Hand Demo in Painting/Drawing is owned by Alina Bradford. Permission to republish How to Draw a Hand Demo in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.