Hey, @Anubhav Saini! Again, I appreciate your patience with my delayed replies. Great job doing this fun exercise. Paraphrasing Stan, drawing hands is hardly ever easy, so I imagine it must have been challenging - but I’d say you managed to complete a pretty nice set of hand studies here. For this critique, I think it’s better to comment image by image, so let’s go. IMAGE 1 - I think it’s great that you tried this dynamic and interesting pose on your own - you didn’t have a Stan’s demo to copy from in this case, so I assume it must have been extra challenging. I think the drawing turned out pretty nice overall. I’m also assuming that the two drawings in this image are two different attempts you took at the same pose. In my point of view, the one on the left looks a bit more well-resolved in general (compared to the other one) because the fingers’ proportions look a bit more realistic (which was an important goal for an exercise on drawing realistic hands), the thenar eminence feels more rounded and the palm feels a bit more 3D, I believe due to the “heart line” that’s wrapping around its edge. In the drawing on the right, the 3rd phalanges (tips of the fingers) look a bit too big and round, as if they were being caricatured (which, for this specific exercise, doesn’t seem to be a relevant goal to aim for). IMAGE 2 - I really like the three ones on the top. Especially the one in the middle top - probably my favorite one in this page. The three on the bottom also look fine overall, although, for more realism, I’d recommend a few adjustments in proportions and form: — The drawing on the bottom left seems to have the ring and pinky fingers a bit too elongated. — The drawing on the middle bottom has more believable proportions, but I feel that the interior of the palm is not clearly described in 3D space - perhaps using basic forms to build it up and wrapping some cross contours could help. Also, I think the knuckles and finger joints look a bit too caricatured for what is expected in this assignment. — For the drawing on the bottom right, I’d say it definitely looks pretty caricatured/cartoony on the tips of the fingers and nails. Personally, I find it pretty cool, but if your goal was to draw realistic hands (as this lesson proposes), adjustments might be welcome. IMAGES 3 AND 4 (which look the same) - The fist (bottom left) looks quite nice. The drawing on the bottom right also looks pretty good (and it’s great that you used rhythm lines to connect the fingers and keep more accurate proportions); I’d suggest taking a bit more time to add in the wrinkles on the back of the fingers, since they are sort of “natural cross-contours” and can definitely help add a stronger sense of 3D form and spatiality. Same goes for the pose of the “OK” sign (top left). Now, about the two drawings of the very dynamic hand with fingers being spread (the bigger one and the one on the mid right): compared to each other, I’d say the smaller one has more accurate proportions of the size relationship between fingers and palm (in the big drawing, the fingers look a bit too short). In both, I love that they look very descriptive in terms of form and space, but, also in both, I think the anatomy needs a bit more structure - for this pose, try using more straight lines whenever possible and remember to relate the surface of the fingers to their underlying bone structure, so that they won’t feel as if they were “broken” or “sausage-like” (considering that the goal is realism). IMAGE 5 - For this one, I’m guessing you used Stan’s drawing as the reference, instead of the photo, was it? Well, either way, I think it’s a good drawing. As a suggestion, maybe I’d tune down the stylization of the Ulna a little bit - instead of making it as a geometric cone, I’d consider the actual bone form and its anatomical placement (how it comes from the forearm to pop up on the surface of the wrist). Also, I don’t see light sketch lines showing the fingers through and how they wrap around the object being held, so another suggestion would be to use the “draw-through” technique when constructing hands, especially when holding objects, as it can certainly help a lot in visualizing everything as forms in 3D space. Hope this helps! Please let me know in case you have any questions. Good studies!

Hey James! These are looking like some really good studies. Adding shadow can definitely get really complicated really quickly. I might suggest just starting with 2-values. 1 for light and 1 for darks. My biggest advise would be to simplify as much as possible even if that means taking a single finger and breaking it down into simple forms that are characteristic. Then just try to light that finger, or even just a portion of that finger. Think of how you might light a simple box or cylinder, then apply that to the form. Iterate as much as you can and play around with those shadow shapes. Hopefully this is helpful. Keep going!