Original subtitles

Let's talk next about drawing the forms of the hands.

Now contrary to popular belief, hands are not that hard to draw, when they're in basic poses.

When you're starting to do more complex poses with the hands, things do get a little bit tricky, but the

forms themselves are very basic, and usually you can work it out without reference. So much like the other

forms,

we start with a basic set of forms, and this would be our palm-

just a block,

and for the fingers we'll use cylinder shapes.

Just as we've done before though, these types of basic 3D forms are not good enough for us.

Why?

Because they're static.

And so we're going to basically do what we do, and bend them, at least bend them in a way that is very similar

to the way the actual anatomy bends, to some extent.

So for example, we'll start drawing our palms like this now, where we're bending the sides, we have a

smaller plane at the bottom and a larger plane at the top.

This is where the fingers connect, and we'll need a decent amount of equal spacing or markers to know

where to put those four fingers.

Then using our proportional guide, you can also mark a circle or some kind of marker

to help us know where to place the thumb.

And then as for the fingers, they really follow the opposing curves kind of rule, where we're using cylinders

that we're bending

and bending them in a way that makes sense, where the curves appose.

So we have the curve going that way, that curve going that way, and then the final curve going that way.

And that is how we can get our finger shapes going. Just as anatomical note,

the fingers generally have three parts.

I say generally, depends what you're drawing, you might be drawing a crazy alien or something like that.

But as for human anatomy, the fingers have three parts, and it's definitely something you want to keep in mind

and it can be very easy to make them two or even sometimes one part. The thumb tends to have,

the thumb does in fact have three,

but because one of the joints is on this area over here, built into the palm in a sense, sometimes you

don't illustrate it

so obviously, that it's the first part of the three.

So let's draw some hands using these forms.

These dynamics cylinders, and this dynamic palm shape, using what we know of our proportional guide, that the

middle finger should be as long as the palm, that the ring finger and the index finger are roughly the same height

as one another, slightly shorter than the middle finger, and that we place the thumb just below the halfway

line of the palms halfway line.

Right.

And we're going to use opposing curves theory to help us get these elements out.

So first off, let's just do a basic three quarter angle hand, hand structure,

and we'll bend those sides, that basic form

You can just mark our finger locations,

put our thumb there. I usually draw, effectively, a sphere here, but it doesn't jut out fully like a sphere, it

is almost like a half sphere jutting out.

And I know that I want to attach my thumb there, probably somewhere there, and the finger is generally

opposed first at this angle from the palm, before they move onto the other oppositions.

So that's useful to know.

So if the hand, if this were a side view of the hand,

the hand usually would be moving up like that, then the knuckle, and then the fingers moving out at

that angle.

Maybe that looks a little abstract but nevertheless.

So here we can insert these base ellipses

and make our shapes our bent, and dynamic cylinder's

kind of sizing them as much as we can to the size of the fingers, the size that the fingers should be.

So here's the middle finger.

Now I want to measure that length out nicely.

Make sure the middle finger doesn't get too long.

It's actually already too long in that joint.

This one is already too long as well.

Just adjust that.

The pinky's one,

second one, is actually around there,

and then ending off the shapes with these small opposing cylinder. Apposing curved cylinder shapes.

Being very rough with us.

That's fine because it's the structure it's very important.

Draw clear don't draw clean.

Let's get a lot of clarity in there. Alright and maybe this edge of this palm extends a little too far out, let's

just adjust that shape a little bit.

And similarly with the thumb, it has three parts.

The first part sort of being here, this being the second,

and here's the third.

And in fact, and indeed, the palm,

while we certainly do bend this side of the palm, as we're bending these front sections of it. The

side view of the palm is not completely straight either.

We want to have a bend of sorts based on the pose of the hand, that the palms block, if

you want to call it that, or the block of the palm, rf the basic form of the palm, is bending in some way

based on the pose.

So here, it's not illustrated well in that regard, but we want to have that bend, that it's clear, that

the side of the palm is also bending.

Right.

And I'm going to lighten this just as we put the skin layer on here.

(Excuse me) And we can then use these forms to inform the skin layer.

I'm just doing it very loosely here.

A great thing about hands in general, is that most people have them, and so most people have a reference

right in front of them.

If you if you do find that you're struggling to draw the hands,

just really following those form lines,

and adding just a very basic skin layer to those forms.

Now the beauty of understanding the basic forms that we're adding dynamism to, so that we're drawing

with dynamic forms. The beauty of understanding the basic forms, is that we can rotate these simple shapes

much more easily than trying to rotate complex skin layered, muscle layered hands.

It's very complicated and it's even overwhelming to try and think about how am I going to rotate in

space something so complex as a hand.

But when you really, when you're only dealing with these curved cylinders, and a palm, that you're just

really bending a block at different angles, it becomes a lot easier to imagine the other sides of these

objects.

For example if the hand were facing us, we might draw something like this, as it recedes.

These are the areas for your fingers, maybe the thumb ball starts here, still following our proportions.

If we were drawing a hand, the back of a hand for example.

It's really just the same as the front.

We're just not going to see all the same details

that we would see in the palm

etc..

And you may see me, especially in the demos that we're going to be looking at, doing the hands, especially

when we're doing big drawings, doing the hands in a way where I will mainly just place down one form,

like this, and then indicate the fingers, and what pose the fingers are doing.

And you can certainly do that and just really make sure that the proportions are matching, because when

it comes time to getting in those final lines, not for the finished piece but for the final rough, you

can even add the forms and take your time in really getting the hand to look how you want to.

And bending the fingers, similarly, is simply a matter of placing the tubular forms at different points

of rotation, and different points of pivot from one another.

Keeping in mind the opposing curves rule.

So this finger is kind of bending in a very awkward way.

That's certainly a possible finger pose, if a little bit exaggerated, perhaps the fingers pressing on

the table or some solid surface.

So in a nutshell, these are the basic forms of the hand and I would definitely encourage you, of course you

do have some assignments regarding this, but I definitely would encourage you, even now, give it a try, give it a

try and see how successful you really can be with just these basic forms, and following the rules of

opposing curves; if one thing curves the one way,

the other thing will curve the other, applying throughout anatomy.

That's the end of the lesson.