A practical guide from Sketchso
How to Draw Hands: Mitten First, Then the Knuckle Arc
Hands look complicated because there are many parts that move. Each hand has 27 bones: 8 in the wrist, 5 in the palm and 14 in the fingers and thumb. You do not need to know them individually, but knowing how they group explains why hands bend where they do. Start with the big shapes and save the fingers for last.
Block the palm and the thumb
Draw the palm as a slightly tapered box, a little longer than it is wide, and thicker at the thumb side. Then draw the fingers together as one mitten shape attached to it, and the thumb as a separate wedge coming from the lower side of the palm near the wrist.
The thumb is the part beginners get most wrong. It does not grow from the side of the palm at the same level as the fingers. It attaches low, close to the wrist, with its own fleshy mound at the base, and it usually faces a different direction to the fingers, partly turned toward them.
The knuckles form an arc
Look at the back of your hand with the fingers straight. The big knuckles are not in a straight line. They form a curve, highest at the middle finger and dropping toward the little finger. The same arc repeats at each row of finger joints. Drawing these as straight parallel lines is the main reason drawn hands look stiff.
When the hand makes a fist, the arc becomes even clearer and the knuckles form a ridge. Draw the arc first as a light curve across the mitten, then divide it into fingers.
Fingers are tapering segments
Each finger has three segments, and each segment is shorter than the one before it, from the knuckle out to the tip. The thumb has two visible segments plus the long bone hidden in the palm. Draw fingers as slightly tapered cylinders joined at the joints, not as sausages with lines drawn across them.
A common drawing guideline makes the middle finger roughly as long as the palm. The middle finger is the longest; the ring and index fingers are close to each other in length and either may be longer; the little finger’s tip reaches roughly to the last joint of the ring finger. Check these against the hand you are drawing.
Foreshortening: overlap, do not shrink
When fingers point toward you, they shorten dramatically and overlap each other and the palm. Instead of trying to measure a shortened finger, draw it as a series of overlapping shapes: the tip overlaps the middle segment, which overlaps the base. Each overlap tells the viewer that the form is coming forward.
Use your own hand as a model. Hold it in the pose next to your paper, or photograph it with your phone. It is the one reference every artist always has available.
Details last: nails, creases and gesture
Nails sit on top of the last segment, curving with it, and do not reach the sides of the finger. Draw them as shapes in perspective that follow the direction of the finger. Creases show on the palm side at the joints and as softer folds over the knuckles on the back.
Before adding any of this, check the gesture. A hand at rest has fingers gently curled, each a little more than the one before it toward the little finger. Straight, evenly spaced fingers look tense, like a hand posed for a photo of a ring.
Questions before you start
Why do my hands look stiff?
Usually the knuckles are drawn in a straight line and the fingers are evenly spaced and straight. Curve the knuckle arc and let the fingers curl progressively toward the little finger.
Where does the thumb attach?
Low on the palm, close to the wrist, on its own fleshy mound. It usually faces partly toward the fingers rather than in the same direction.
How do I practise hands?
Draw your own hand in different poses for five minutes a day, starting each one as a palm block, a thumb wedge and a mitten before separating the fingers.