You draw hands so well!! How do you do it?
Hello Seekdusk! Thank you so much <3 The most common thing to say, but has been the longest journey for me, is literally hours and hours of practicing! I'll go more into depth under the cut!
I think it comes from the fact that I am a goddamn stubborn person, and when I set my mind to it, I'll finish it. The time I really became determined to draw hands, was when I was around 14 years old? Now I'm 27, so I've had some years practicing hands now haha What truly inspired me was movies like Disney Tarzan, Atlantis and the older hand drawn movies. The way the many animations drew hands? Utterly poetry to my soul. And the fact that they were able to animate hand moving too?? It was godly to my small human brain at my earlier age. Milt Kahl, a legend when it comes to early Disney animation, (and most conmanly known to animate those head swaggle frames,)
But also a goddamn god when it comes to hand???
Freaking love these so much, and there is so much more references of his drawing if you search for him. Anyway, my point to all of this was: Find your inspiration! Is there a style you're dying to try out and want to get better at? Do you want to develop your own kind of style and get better at anatomy all in all? I think having a goal really helps you reach for the distance. Mine was to draw like the legends! My grandfather, who is also an artist and was a big inspiration for me as young, told me that one of the hardest things to draw was: Hands and feet. "When an artist can draw the palms of a hand or the sole of a foot in detail, they can truly draw anything." Me, hearing this at 6 years old? You better believe I made that my life's goal to become the greatest little artist there is and draw awesome hands and anatomy!!! Little hopeful 6-years-old me of course didn't know the half of how much time I would spend drawing then. But I think that also helped somehow. Not overthink it in the moment. Draw what inspires you and and have fun while doing it. Anatomy was something that was so fascinating to me too as young, I got to borrow my grandfather's book by Burne Hogarth: Dynamic Figure Drawings.
His style if pretty stylized, but it helped me understanding the proportions of muscles, form and posture. So my other point would be: Use references that helps and inspires you to draw more and improve! Something I've talked to my many artist friends in need of help is that: Using references is NOT CHEATING!!! References has been the very source for art since the freaking stone age. Need help drawing that hand that's stubbornly difficult to draw? Take a picture of your own hand in the pose you want and trace it! Or you can find pictures or 3D figure posers online for free where you can literally pose hands however you like!
And one last point I would like to say too is: It's alright to do mistakes! And when you can't quite do it? Take a break and come back to it later. When I was struggling the most while drawing hands, I would get so frustrated I wanted to throw the tablet out of the window. Solution? Take a coffee/tea break. Go for a walk or something. When you get back to it, you'll start off with a fresh mind and maybe even see what you need to do to fix the drawing too! Anyway I've been rambling for a while now. If you got this far, I hope these will help you on your journey too as it did for me ♥♥♥
