Toolkit 2D - Hands Practice

 Toolkit 2D - Hands Practice 

This week, we looked at how to construct hands. To simplify the construction method, it was separated into the dorsal and palmar side of the hand.

First I looked at the dorsal side of the hand, which is the top side, where the knuckles are.

On the left side is how I normally go about constructing a hand. On the right I looked at the general bone placements in the hand. I tried to quickly draw them from memory. In red are the carpal bones (these are one shape here since its easier and much more time efficient this way when drawing), in blue are the metacarpals and in green are the phalanges. One thing I need to remember is that the thumb has two phalanges (No intermediate phalanges bone) bones compared to all other fingers having three.

Next I looked at the palmar side of the hand.

This is how I quickly construct the palmar side of the hand. I always find it hard to construct the thumb on this side of the hand because its harder to find where to put it, but knowing the bone structure has made me a bit more accurate with it.

At first, for the timed sketches, I took pictures of my own hands and gave myself five minutes for each sketch, totalling ten sketches overall.

After timing myself for the different hand sketches in this way, I found myself getting better and better and spacing the fingers out better. I also was getting better at the placement of the thumb. The only thing I need to work on for the next batch is the proportions of the different fingers, as making them even slightly off makes the entire hand just look wrong.

For the next 20 sketches, I allotted myself two minutes for each one. I also gave myself an extra condition of not being able to undo or erase, simulating how it would be to draw in pen.

Overall, I was quite happy with this exercise as it made me think more about the construction of the hand than before. It forced me to quickly imagine the placement of the shapes within the hand. As seen in the above image, the ones I didn't finish where the hands that I tried to draw overall rather than the smaller shapes making it up.

Finally, for the last 10 hands, I did a range of hands holding things, some of which were 5 minutes, and others were 2 minutes. I found this a lot tougher than before and honestly struggled with some poses to visualise how to construct them. I feel I understand construction of the hands in the context of holding something better now.