Project - Mannequin Hands

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

inDrawing Basics

1.1K

Assignments 357

Downloads 8

Project - Mannequin Hands

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

1.1K

Assignments 357

Downloads 8

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!

J. Menriv

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10d

Project - Mannequin Hands - Level 1 (Round 2)

Antonio Santiago

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11d

Very fun assignment, it made drawing boxes so much more fun by actually trying to represent something with them and made me better at drawing specific boxes not random boxes with no meaning. Definitely felt myself being able to visualize them and drawing the exact boxes I wanted as I did more hands. I feel like my first ones ended up being too thin but was able to fix that somewhat later on. I think it also helped my observation skills since I had to learn how to simplify which required an understanding of what I'm looking at. Any critique is highly appreciated.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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11d

Sounds like you did exactly what you needed to for this project. Learning to simplify complex subject down to simple structures is foundational for drawing. You will learn to see boxes, tubes, and spheres in everything. Your hand drawings are looking great. Particularly the one on the top of the second image. The perspective and proportion look solid. The hand with the foreshortened fingers on the first image is extra difficult, so I made this demo to help students. It may not be how Stan does it, but I find it really helpful to start loose before building structures on top. Especially when drawing foreshortened forms. Hope this helps. Keep it up!

Michael Longhurst

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13d

Great assignment. Really tough, but really made me think about the orientation of each box and how to draw it. I struggled a lot with the proportions and getting the fingers to point in just the right position, but feels like it’s getting easier.

@al_ic_ja

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18d

@al_ic_ja

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14d

Carlo Julian

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27d

This was harder than I thought it would be. I think a lot of boxes ended up wedge shaped.

Gannon Beck

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27d

Well done!

J. Menriv

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1mo

Hand 3

Melanie Scearce

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1mo

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.

J. Menriv

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1mo

Hand 1

Jenna

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1mo

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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2mo

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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2mo

Bravo 🫶

Luke

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2mo

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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2mo

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

Luis Fidalgo

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2mo

I found this proyect very fun

Sean H

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2mo

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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2mo

You captured so much gesture with just boxes. Wow!

Amu Noor

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2mo

This was the hardest assignment. EVER.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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2mo

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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3mo

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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3mo

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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3mo

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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3mo

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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3mo

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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3mo

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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3mo

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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3mo

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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3mo

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 :)