Alrighto, time for @bonmod‘s final tutoriel: Part 3/3: Armsss

Mostly I’ll talk about proportions and a few tricks to get them to do what you want and not look stiff like a double popsicle’s sticks.

Git ready! >:y

1.- First let’s talk about length. Your arms should always keep a size relative to your torso, which is to say, the fingertips never go beyond the middle of your thigh, the wrist reaches crotch leve, and elbows go to the midway between ribs and bellybutton. I like to call this area the upper belly.

Just like with the Knucklecircles, Shoulder and elbow can be connected to form the upper arm. Furthermore, an additional circle can help you define the forearm’s width,which we connect the same way.

2.- This diagram shows the torso sections better. Yeah. Oh btw always keep a gap between the elbow and the torso, or with a slight bent of the elbow. If you do them straight or too close to the torso the chara will look stiff, so unless you want army dudes in perfect formations, avoid that.

As for different positions, keep in mind the bones when making the joints bend. I said it before and I gotta keep saying it; this needs abstract thinking of the tridimensional kind, so work hard on improving your brainmuscles man! DO IT YOU COWARDS!! >:Y

3.- Now for some poses, I’ve chosen the classic “I’m doing the arms behind his back because I don’t wanna draw hands”, but with a twist, that you may want to make a rule for yourself: Don’t draw the arms as straight lines.

I mean it. It may look cute ad be a good pose for you to make boobers stick out more, but the backside does not have enough give for that pose to be confortable man, so give you arms a bent in this pose. Even the slightest one. Your chara will thank you.

The other pose is good ol’ “FIGHT ME!” which I’ve gone with for exemplifying 3D Segmentation, which you can see more clearly in the right forearm. See how its line cuts thru the rest of the arm at the elbow connection? Well that’s because at that point the shading does crazy stuff that makes it work better if you do this line.

4.- And finally, and I’m sure you’ve seen this tip before, if all else fails and you still got doubts about how to 3D-fy your arms, do the Limb Spiral.

That is, starting from your joint (circle), draw a fixed number of circles of your choice, could be 7 could be 12 whatever fits you, up to the point you guesstimate to be perfect for your next joint. You must be careful though, since the gaps are what will give your arm length, make it too wide, and it will become a yaoi arm; make it too tight and you’ll have a T-rex person. So try to only use it as a resort for perspective drawing, when your arm reaches either forward or backward in your drawing.

And that’s that, now you have a loose grasp of how to draw hands n’ arms. At least as loose as I do. Any questions you may have please let me know man, would hate it to leave you at a loss in your artistic efforts >:y

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