Continuing with @bonmod‘s tutoriels, comes part 2/3, the applied hand sciences! :Y
1.- This requieres some degree of tridimensional thinking: Following the steps from the first part, begin with the rectangle, but giving it a spin in the axis of your choice. Then continue with all previous steps, up to drawing the Fingerlines and thumb. A thing to note is that Knucklecircles overlap each other a bit in these, as they are now being done in 3D, and just like they gave width to the fingers in the frontal view of part 1/3, they’ll serve to give volume to the hand in these positions.
Figure 1.1 shows a ¾ angle kinda deal, with the palm turned to the left. And here we see our first instance of The Hand Bump. Usually it is a copy of the thumb’s base, kinda like doing a “< <”, except it doesn’t connect with its rectangle’s side, it just kinda floats there under the pinky’s Knucklecircle. Speaking of pinky, you’ll notice this time the finger joints are a bit bent, as to give this hand a more natural look. We’ll get to that later.
Figure 1.2 is a peace sign, with the thumb base pointing inward but still connected to the rectangle’s corners. Two of the fingers are completely bent by now, and thus their Fingerlines are shorter.
Figure 1.3 is a palm resting on a surface, so we’re looking at it from above in a kinda isometric view.
2.- Now, for this part I skipped the tip drawing and went straight for the lineart, which you too will be able to do in time. I believe in you, c’mon.
Figure 2.1 shows the 3D best if I may say so myself, with the bump giving volume to the palm, the fingers being overlapped and that cheeky little tip of the thumb’s base line at the wrist there. Also that line at the base of the fingers? It’s there to show that even index and birdie are being bent at least somewhat at the base joints.
Figure 2.2 is pretty simple, follow the Knuckle circles’ width for volume, erase the thumb’s base and only keep the falange itself in, adding a thumb bump underneath. yeah.
Figure 2.3 doesn’t look like much but if you pay enough attentention you’ll see the wrist line connects a bit farther from the palm’s rectangle, because a perfectly flat palm is not real man, you gotta put a limit somewhere if you wanna make immersive character designs ok? If you did do it flat it’d look like some weird glitch took over your art physics and gave everyone hella flexible tendons >:Y
3.- Now for fists, the trick is to give the palm a bit of a stretch. And a squash. Make the rectangle shorter and wider for a cartoony effect to make your punch seem more menacing. But don’t go overboard, it still is a flesh hand, not some inflatable rubber ball. Other than that, it’s the same rules as before: do the Palm Pentagon, then the Knucklecircles, then the Fingerlines, then delete some useless lines like the crossed out ones in the image, then add you thumb and thumb bump. Then lineart it.
In this case, I skipped even doing the Fingerlines. Man I’m such a loose cannon :yc
4.-Now I know what you’re thinking: “But Gear all those steps are to complicated! my characters have hands too smol for all those details, what can I do?” and to you I say: Finger Rhombus. Just do your Palm Pentagon at whatever scale you may want it, then add a rhombus to it instead of doing the Knucklecircles.
In this case I still did the cicrs tho, to show you how to divide your rhombus. That is, you draw your fingers without leaving the rhombus area, letting the overlapping ones cover the ones behind them. And you can also use this tech to do bent fingers like a fist’s. Don’t tho. This is mainly a straight finger technique - .-
Welp, that’s all for today. This subject in particular is way too big man, if there’s a hand gesture you have particular problems with let me know because tackling them all in their entirety is not a good idea.
2.- Now for the fingers. Start by placing your knuckles atop the Palm Pentagon®, you can either use 4 or just 3 depending on your style, I DON’T GIVEA—anyways, try to keep the center of each circle close to the line. As to how big to make them, you let your palm decide that for you, just use your intuition for making them all equal..it. This is what we call <<proportion>>
From the circles, drawl lines from their centers, these will define how long your fingers will be. Try to not go beyond the length of the palm itself. Unless your style involves long fingers I guess.
As for the thumb, just remember to do the outside with straight lines and the insides curvy, with the inside line starting at the middle-ish part of the green line from figure 1. Other than that, I got no idea man :D
I’m a sham “orz
4.- Let’s pretend I did the fingers all the same in step 3, so now our hand is good to line. No, don’t detail it anymore. That’s a waste of time, these are sketches man, they’re not supposed to impress anyone. Especially yourself. It’s important to learn when to stop doodling and start gettin serious, to make the final version of your art ù.ú
any <thing>-man term (wolf-man, fish-man, etc.) is infinitely funnier if you switch the words around and put the “man” at the beginning. thus the inherent humor in the term “manchild”. although I guess “childman” is pretty funny too. it’s three in the morning.
