Hands / Руки

Hands
Hands present a unique challenge for the artist. Hands are notoriously difficult to draw because they are very complex and have a wide range of motion. They can maneuver in so many different ways. Adding to this, every person in the world sees hands every day, so every one of us knows exactly what hands look like and we can tell instantly when they don't look right. An artist has to know what they're doing, then, when it comes to drawing hands. It's impossible to fake hands in a convincing way.

Like any difficult, complex problem, people often try to come up with «formulas» to draw hands in the hopes that that they can learn how to draw hands consistently without any effort or struggle.

In addition to certain formulas for hands that get passed on from artist to artist, everyone in animation has seen those pages full of disembodied hand drawings (often by Milt Kahl) passed around as examples of how to draw hands.

I understand how valuable it can be--especially to a young artist starting out--to find a system for drawing things that helps take some of the struggle out of drawing. In that way, a formula or system can be helpful as a starting point. The problem comes when artists stick with a formula or «stock» way of doing things. As artists we should always question any formula we might be falling into, and we should constantly push ourselves to find new and inventive ways to draw everything in an original way.

There's nothing wrong with looking at the way someone else tackled the problem as a method to understand how another artist found their way. I do that all the time. I like seeing how great artists were able to simplify complex problems. But I don't like relying on formulas because they stifle imagination and creativity. Also, when you look at a page of disembodied hand drawings, it's easy to forget that hands should always be an extension of what the body and face are expressing. Hands don't carry the expression of the character; they work in concert with the whole pose to tell you what the character is thinking and feeling.

Also, no two characters should ever have the same hands, just as no two characters should ever have the same face. Heavy characters have different looking hands than slight, skinny characters. Short characters should have different hands than tall characters. Old characters should have different hands than young characters, etc. The hands of each character should be distinctive and original.
Each pair of hands gives you a different idea of what the owner of the hands looks like, as well as what their personality and character might be.


Also, no two characters should have the same hand gestures. The type of character tells you what kind of hand gestures they will tend to have. An excitable character might use their hands in a vigorous way while they're talking, while a character who is more guarded and tends to be sit calmly won't have hand gestures that are very extreme.

Hands can provide a great resource for acting. Someone who is terrified but trying to maintain their brave façade might be given away by their trembling hands. A character that is trying to avoid facing an unpleasant conversation might busy themselves with an action that involves their hands, to distract themselves from the uncomfortable situation.

As you storyboard or animate, all of these ways to exploit and utilize a character's hands should be considered, and I think learning formulaic ways of drawing hands (and studying stock poses that have been used before, for an entirely different character) can make you lose sight of just how expressive hands can be and how individual the hands can be according to the personality and physique of your particular character.


The best way to learn how to draw hands (or learn how to draw anything, for that matter) is, in my opinion, to study the real thing. The best place to start with hands is to learn about what's under the skin. Any good anatomy book can help you understand the basic structure of your hands, and the good news is that hands are actually really easy to comprehend. Hands don't have a lot of muscle on them; they're mostly bones and tendons (and some fat pads on the underside of the fingers). So their structure shows pretty clearly on the surface.

The first anatomy book I ever owned was «Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist» by Stephen Rogers Peck. I spent hours and hours reading that book and trying to make sense of how to draw the human body. I got a lot out of his illustrations of how the hand bones work and his simple diagrams which explain some simplified ways to look at hand anatomy. Here are the pages from the book concerning hands:

Sorry that the last two pages are a little light; they are pencil sketches and don't scan well.

In general, when people ask me what anatomy books I like, I always tell them my advice is to read as many different ones as you can. You never know what tidbit of information will stick with you or unlock an insight you didn't have before. Also, no anatomy book is perfect, so it's best to read a few and make sure you're not absorbing just one person's mistakes!

The other bit of good news about hands, obviously, is that you have your own hands to use as models as you're drawing. We always think of animators as making faces into a mirror, but I have probably used my mirror to aid in drawing hands on many, many more occasions than I've used it to aid in drawing expressions.

When it comes to drawing gestures, the book «Manwatching» by Desmond Morris has a lot of interesting reference concerning hand gestures. He describes the hidden meaning behind many common hand gestures and what the speaker using the gesture is trying to say with his hands (on a subconscious level, of course). Morris also talks about hand gestures that have a specific meaning in one country, but have a totally different meaning in another country (or no meaning at all). Here are some samples of his interpretations:

This diagram serves as a handy way to break gestures into categories:



A few of his observations about particular gestures and their meaning:








The caption to this one says, «The Hand Chop, in which the flattened hand slices through the air, emphasizing the speaker's need to cut through a problem.»




The caption to this photo reads, «The Palm Up baton of the speaker who implores his audience to agree with him. His hands adopt the posture typical of a begging man.»


Just as I don't believe in relying on formulas to draw, I don't think an artist should take Morris's interpretations as gospel and treat his book as a way to «plug in» the right gesture for each type of acting scene. Every artist should use his or her own instincts and sense of acting to find the right acting for each pose and attitude. However, Morris's book can be a great aid for getting you to recognize gestures and start to think about what each gesture might impart to the viewer about the speaker and what they are thinking and feeling.


When I tried to think about artists that drew particularly good hands, I drew a bit of a blank…after all, as I said, I think I focus on artists that draw expressive poses and I don't really think about hands as a separate element…to me, they're just part of the pose, and if they're done well, they don't get noticed! But here are some artists that I think draw expressive hands (and some that are also good at finding the right hand design to fit the personality of a character):

Hopefully, this wide variety of examples shows that there isn't one way to draw hands, and that the best artists find their own individual way of tacking the subject. Also, you don't need to put a ton of drawing and anatomy into hands, if that's not your style…a squiggle that's expressive and reads as a hand can be just as effective as a detailed, precise anatomical drawing of a hand when it comes to communicating.


In any case, when it comes to drawing hands, I hope you won't be satisfied with relying on formulas or drawing stock poses that have been done already…look and observe, experiment and don't be afraid to fail! Finding a new way to do something is the most exciting and satisfying part of being an artist, and the only way to become a true original instead of a pale imitation of someone else.