Project - Mannequin Hands

Lesson by

Project - Mannequin Hands

Lesson by

Drawing boxes can get repetitive, so let's try to make this one engaging and practical. In this project you'll be drawing mannequin hands. Hands are an excellent subject for practicing drawing boxes because fingers can bend in various directions, allowing for up to 16 different boxes in a single drawing.

Level 1

Download Photos: Download the 3 photos in the downloads tab.
Gesture: Before drawing the boxes, identify the big shapes and the gesture of the hand. Lightly sketch in the simple shapes to ensure the boxes are in the correct location and proportion. Avoid drawing any anatomy, skin details or nails.
Construct Boxes: Constructing boxes in three-point perspective to represent the segments of the hand and fingers.

The aim is to practice drawing boxes in perspective using hands as a subject. Don't get distracted by trying to draw a perfect hand with anatomical detail.

Level 2

After drawing each hand from the photo, draw the same pose from a different angle. This will require you to imagine the pose and draw from imagination.
Don't Strive for Perfection. It's okay if the pose isn't exactly the same from the new angle. The objective is to practice drawing boxes in various configurations.

Extra Credit: Drawing hands from imagination is pretty hard. If you want to do some extra homework, you can review these free hand lessons from my Anatomy course:

How to Draw Hand Bones – Anatomy for Artists

How to Draw Hands – Muscle Anatomy of the Hand

How to Draw HANDS – Details for Realistic Hands!

How to Draw Hands from IMAGINATION – Step-by-Step

Deadline: Submit by 02/22/2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!

Menriv

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Hand 3

Melanie Scearce

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Nice work! The curve that the knuckles follow looks awesome. Only thing is make sure to separate the thumb from the plane where the fingers attach.

Menriv

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10d

Hand 1

Jenna

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15d

I had a fun time doing this assignment! It felt cool to take boxes and apply them to creating 3D body parts. The first three are done before watching the demo. 4th is after watching. Critiques welcome!

Evan Wray

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20d

First two. First one is much cleaner than the second one. I feel like I'm starting to understand the perspective of each individual box better and better, but the proportions are all messed up so they don't look very good overall. Oh well I suppose that'll come with time.

ken Carlos

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19d

Bravo 🫶

Luke

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1mo

It took awhile to see the boxes in the hand. I found it really helped starting with a single plane, then figure out the angle needed to project it into a cube.

Evan Wray

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20d

Really love the shifted perspective on #1, cool choice and great execution!

Luis Fidalgo

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1mo

I found this proyect very fun

Sean H

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1mo

Here's my first hands for this assignment. Have to keep reminding myself to focus on boxes and not the natural details/taper of the hands themselves haha. To that end, feel I find myself not thinking enough about the convergences at times. Hopefully will improve the more I do these though. Also keep catching myself drawing way too small for these... maybe I'm unintentionally trying to hide mistakes in the hands lol

Amu Noor

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1mo

You captured so much gesture with just boxes. Wow!

Amu Noor

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1mo

This was the hardest assignment. EVER.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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1mo

Haha, hands are very difficult to draw. Looks like you did a wonderful job though! I like how you played with the line-weight on some of these. Very nice!

Max

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2mo

Hello, I really enjoyed this project, I did a bunch of other hands, and here's three I would some feedback about if possible. They are all level 1 post critique video. For the 1st drawing, I feel like the palms are pointing at the top though I hatched the top part of the upper hand, I don't know if it's just because we are only using boxes. also it's proportion is a little too big. I did this drawing in 40 minutes. The 2nd drawing is the one I'm more confident about, the reference was clear and really expressive. It took me 10 minutes. The 3rd was the hardest, the angle of the palms and fingers were really hard to grasp at first sight but in the end I'm happy with the outcome. This one took me 2 hours. Also on the 3rd drawing I don't know if the index fingers are right, technically the farther it goes away from us the smaller it appear, but it doesn't feel right to me. Maybe the converging or the angles of the boxes are wrong. I would love to receive any feedback to improve my drawing skills and especially my understanding of 3 points perspective !

I did not Want to see that

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2mo

Alright, with this the assignment is done. This one was a bit harder than the others, and I did have to really think about it more. One note to myself would be that I should just take my time for every single line, and perhaps before I instantly go into the project, maybe loosely sketch my thought process out first to get a better image of what I should be doing. I do like some more than others. The first three images are all first level and have been made after the demo. The 4th is level 2 pre demo and the last one is after the demo. Out of the level 2 projects I like the last one more, since I did put some more thought into it, but of course it can still be wrong. If there are any mistakes, pointing those out to me would be extremely nice and I will be very grateful for those that do! Although it isn't a requirement of course!

Rachel Dawn Owens

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2mo

Nice! These are really clean drawings. You’re right, sometimes it’s easier to start looser and then draw the forms on top. Especially when you’re dealing with foreshortening. Thanks for sharing!

Alvaro Villanueva

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2mo

These are my attempts. I tried also the level 2 even if I think I am not ready for it yet, could I have some feedback on level 1 and 2? I try to review on my own but started to be hard for me to see exactly what I am doing wrong. I see mistakes on level 1 and for sure a lot on level 2 with proportions and coherence, also I am not sure if I am doing the boxes it self correctly in both level 1 and 2 Ty for check it <3 ^^

Melanie Scearce

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2mo

Super nice job with these. They all look pretty spot on. I did notice that you broke the thumb joint in your last set of drawings. You can see in your first drawing, you have the faces of the boxes connected to each other. In your rotated drawings, the first box of the thumb (connected to the palm) is rotated so that it doesn't connect with the second box. As for your second rotated drawing, I think giving that palm a bit more of an angle will give you room to place the thumb box with the correct rotation. Hope that helps :)

Jack H

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2mo

These are my predemo attempts. I think they came out okay, but the boxes can probably be more refined and sharp. Also I guess I accidentally tapered the ends of the fingers to make it fit the photos more. Level 2 was really hard and even though I managed to somehow come up with those hands, I'm not sure if they are following the same pose as the original reference. Any critiques or feedback are welcome!

Ian

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2mo

My brain hurts. First attempt done in red. Used green pencil and Followed along the level 1 Demo. 2nd attempt done in blue pencil.

I did not Want to see that

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2mo

These are all pre demo and level one. I will be posting the post demos and level 2 assignments sometime tomorrow. I could have made these cleaner and a little more closer to the actual reference, but I had to get my mind into that mindset of really putting things into boxes and not using the other shapes in the hand, so I had to get used to that a little. I have not posted the post demo assignments of the last 2 or 3 projects, and that is because I either got it right the first time, and was minimal change the second time or because I just forgot, so I am gonna look through my folder lol. Of course I wont see a lot of results in just two studies, but I will continue doing them a lot after I finish this course and implement them in my regime. Regardless of that, if there are any points of improvement letting me know is something I appreciate a lot!

Melanie Scearce

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2mo

Careful with the connection points -- in the first one, it looks like the fingers are coming out of the top of the palm instead of the front plane. I think establishing the position of the palm first may help you. You can use that front plane of the palm to place the fingers so they are all in line. Hope that helps :)

Christina Unger

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2mo

Turns out I'm pretty bad at seeing boxes, and not really better at drawing them.

Stan Prokopenko

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2mo

You're doing a lot better than you're giving yourself credit for. These are really good!

@osa

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2mo

Here is my attempt! Could definitely use some work. I need to keep it cleaner and maybe not make my angles so extreme.

Vili

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2mo

Hurting lesson haha i dont feel ready for the level 2

Rachel Dawn Owens

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2mo

These are looking great! I made this demo for another student. Maybe you will find it helpful too. I think you did really well with this assignment. The boxes came out looking very 3d and the placement of the fingers is well done. Keep it up!

@writedrawface

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2mo

Level 1 wasn't too bad. It was a little difficult figuring out how to portray the fingers as boxes and their perspective, but I think I got the hang of it over time.

Melanie Scearce

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2mo

I can tell you were getting the hang of it. That second pose is difficult with the fingers coming towards us. When we simplify the fingers into boxes, think about how much of the planes will be visible. The more of a plane that we can see, the more directly it's facing us. Hope that helps!