aa first off sorry for being so late in answering this!! ive been so busy, so this has just been sitting in my inbox ;v;i know i always say this, but im not super great w/ hands!! they’re really hard for me to draw too, i think because they’re so expressive! honestly the best way to get used to them is by studying and drawing your own hands until you’re familiar with their structure and how they work ^^ i’d recommend doing blind contours of your hands; they wont turn out great but it’ll definitely help you learn the basic anatomy of your hands. its also a good warm up for observational drawing (lol my teacher always made us do these before we could start our still lifes)ofc im sure you probably mean more stylized hands so i’ll try to break down some tips for drawing hands out of your head:(forgive these next drawings, i did them on a sleep deprived night at 3am haha)

These first two were drawn (pretty quickly) from observation of my own hand, while the two below were drawn from my head! Some noticeable differences are amount of detail put into each. In observational drawing you should be capturing each fold of the skin, and the wrinkles caused by joints bending etcIt’s hard for me to explain, but studying hands like this can help you understand the parts that make up a hand and in turn help you visualize one in your hand. You should try thinking about them in terms of 3D shapes instead of one whole object.

When i stylize hands I keep key features such as knuckles, and finger joints to make them recognizable, but I like to either exaggerate the “pointed” finger tip, or blocky shapes in the fingers. I’ll try to break it down as I visualize it:

Honestly, I’m still learning how to break down the body into shapes, but I think of the palm as a square with triangular bits coming out of it. I add a little circle on the side to represent the thumb joint too, since I think that’s definitely an important bit in making a hand read as a hand. Hands will jut out there to accommodate the thumb! When I sketch hands in my drawings I’ll often just sketch in a quick triangle and refine it during the lineart stages. I wouldn’t recommend doing that per say since its a pain, but practicing gesture drawings of hands where you use shapes to quickly sketch a base is a good idea!and for the (imo) fun bit, little tips to consider when you’re drawing hands!

The middle and ring finger tend to stick together!! Obviously that’s not always the case, but often times drawing them together can make a hand look more natural! On that note, the pink tends to be the odd one out and sticks out a lot! Consider the “webbing” we have between our fingers! When fingers are squished together it’ll fold a little bit! you can put a little line there to represent this, it really fleshes out your fingers i think! There’s a ton of this webbing between the thumbl and index finger so remember that as well!The palm can be broken down into three main parts! A hand has two fleshy lumps at the bottom, above the wrist. The biggest one is over the thumb joint, and the one under the pinky is smaller, but still sticks out a little bit past the wrist. The top portion is where the knuckles are located and the fingers will follow the arc of that portion.

A big ol’ bunch of figure drawing studies.  Drawn with pen and marker.

1 min quick gestures ref: https://line-of-action.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/

This was a request and at first I wasn’t sure if I had anything to provide with, but as it turn out it got a little longer than I expected because there were actually things I had to say!! Wow!! 

Anyway, this is some guidelines I follow when I try to make the face expressfull, more specifically the mouth! It is often neglected, since it’s actually pretty hard, I’ll admit. But I’m here to help (hopefully…)! A mouth expression tutorial as per request. Enjoy and hopefully it will help some a little. ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

Draw the teeth at the right angle. 

This is super important. The upper jaw follows the angle of the head, and the lower jaw will depend on how open it is. Make sure you have a rough estimate of where the teeth are, and how much of them you’re going to see!

The lips will VERY roughly follow the same angle as the teeth. It really depends on the character, but it gives you a sense at least. 

If you DON’T do this, you’re going to lose so much volume and the mouth is going to end up looking unrelatable. I showed this example in this tutorial:

It’s not just the lips! 

The cheeks, chin, and tongue play a role too! 

Try look at your own mouth or references! I have a very pliable and large mouth, so that’s one reason why my characters have it too lmao.

ASYMMETRYYYYY (ง ͠° ͟ل͜ ͡°)ง

I cannot emphasize how important asymmetry is when drawing expressions. It applies not only to the eyebrows to achieve the Dreamwork Face™, but also the mouth. Seriously if you draw a symmetric mouth I will deliver myself to your mailbox and then shout at you until you fix it. 

Look at the difference between these two for example: which one has more “life”? 

I think you get the idea.

Push and squish - give it flow

Here’s an old drawing I have but it illustrates how I think when I squish the mouth, and use folding and wrinkles to my advantage.

Look at your own face and see where skin bundles up, where it creases the most and when bumps appear on your chin. Subtle details makes all the difference! 

One VERY effective detail is illustrated in the first sketch, where I pull upwards on one side, and downwards on the other. That’s a good detail to use when the character is making a skewed expression, or is extremely frustrated. I encourage you to play around with that concept bc it’s ~super effective~!

EXAMPLES:

Happy: Your entire mouth is pushed upwards, not just the corners of your mouth!

I tend to draw a :3 mouth bc I’ve been drawing Lance too much….. You don’t have to but it’s basically imprinted in my motor memory by now. 

Pouting/frowning: corners are pushed down, middle pushed slightly up. Sometimes, there’s a slight dip in the middle too. It can give a sense that the character is biting their lips.

Showing frustration/intimidating/is intimidated: basically showing a lot of teeth. The corners are as open as possible and the middle sorta more squished. An extremely important detail here is showing some of the gums, and open space between the cheeks and teeth. That way it looks like the mouth it open to it’s full potential. Here is also where you basically MUST add folds and bumps, or else it’s not going to look relatable. 

(Here I am again with the pulling upwards on one side and downwards on the other, as illustrated on the last sketch)

And then again, here’s just another doodle showing how important it is to show the gums. It’s the same face twice, but the second one looks slightly more frustrated doesn’t it?

(from my other tutorial on how to draw facial expressions)

As you can see, this last one is very versatile and I draw it a lot. Play around with the basic shape and see how much subtle details makes a lot of difference! 

That’s it! 

And start by just picking the base face you want to learn and copying it from the chart, and add the features you want on top of it.

Then, do another drawing working as much from memory as you can, and go back afterwards to compare against the reference and fix mistakes.

Repeat that step until you’re comfortable drawing the face angle from memory, then you can try experimenting with it - trying different styles, etc.. Or you can start over with a different angle.

i made some expression memes for yall!

I created a expression meme chart because I was REALLY bored  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Warm comfy hoodies

OO1 // OO2

OO3 // OO4

OO5 // OO6

OO7 // OO8

OO9 // O1O

I made this tutorial for a friend who needed some advice but if it helps anyone else, free free to use!