Project - Mannequin Hands

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

inDrawing Basics

1.5K

Course In Progress

Assignments 410

Downloads 8

Project - Mannequin Hands

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

1.5K

Course In Progress

Assignments 410

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!

Rynhardt van Vuuren

•

12h

I completed the level 1 course without viewing the extra credit content. I started with hand 2. The Thick Finger... I messed proportion quite badly. I felt a tad overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I am trying to focus on i.e. getting my lines straight, getting convergence right, getting line weight correct. Anyway not quite muscle memory yet.... I did hand 3 and hand 1 subsequently where I find I improved on hand 1.

hobodios

•

I tried to do level 2 and it was quite hard. Drawing from imagination (kinda) is my weakness and In this case I didn't know how to place my idea on paper I guess that just takes practice. Any feedback would help a lot!

Stephen Clark

•

Compared to how you felt about it, this turned out pretty solid. There's some proportional shift compare to the reference but that's not the purpose of this exercise exactly. You did what feels like a pretty convincing reverse view version of the ref and that's no simple task. Great job!

@deadsm

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This was extremely rough. I thought it wouldn't be that bad since I have my hand to look at. I was wrong; keeping proportions and gestures when doing boxes is rough. I realized with each hand that you really have to use gesture first if you don't have a reference. Grounding a drawing in perspective is hard from imagination if you are working with complicated forms.

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

These hands look animated. Lots of energy. Keep practicing boxes in perspective and it will get more intuitive.

hobodios

•

After I was done with the 3 images I wanted to do a little more and drew Master Hand! As always feedback is appreciated.

Tommy Pinedo

•

Ah yes the master hand. Always hated his other half the left hand or crazy hand haha. Good job! :D

@kirstybp

•

11d

Wow this one was really hard! Could definitely do with some practice and feedback!

Aubrey Hannah

•

12d

I think I could call this by far the most difficult exercise I've done in perspective. Hands are very complicated to draw even without considering perspective. Nevertheless, it was a very good challenge. Like with our previous exercise drawing portraits in two-point perspective, I had difficulty finding vanishing points in any of the reference photos. Constructive criticism is welcome of course.

@621

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15d

@androida

•

20d

Level 1 hands - I think the hardest part with drawing these as boxes are the joints.

Maestro

•

21d

Some of the small boxes might have a bit too much of convergence, to the point they look distorted. In general I'm satisfied with the result. Would be very grateful for a critique.

Angel Kritikos

•

23d

Level 1 hands ready

Axel Gyllenstierna

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23d

Nicely done! I especially like the bottom right one. The knuckles are chunky and lovely. Gives a good weight to it.

Axel Gyllenstierna

•

24d

Level 1 and 2 for each hand. The imagining part was hard but fun! The close-up angles were interesting. Feedback appreciated!

Melanie Scearce

•

23d

Wow, these are so dynamic. Well done 👍 The only thing I would point out is the knuckles on the second to last one seeming to float above the box of the palm, but other than that the orientation of your boxes looks great.

@goobish

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1mo

Did my best with the assignment but I felt like my proportions may have been a bit skewed especially on my attempt at the level 2 I hope I can improve on this with practice any advice is greatly appreciated

Mika Vermeulen

•

1mo

I found this a very dificult exercise and I will need some further practice. Feedbakc is welcome!

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

1mo

Nice blocky hands! This IS a very difficult assignment. Hands are hard. I find it easier to start super loose and sketchy. Especially for the foreshortened hands. I think you could add a little more to the side plane of that middle finger. Also, here’s a demo I made for this lesson that might be helpful too.

@lauralana

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1mo

After I did the first one, I noticed that the fingers were connected at the edges of the shapes and I hadn't fully mannequinized them, so I tried to do that with the following two. It did help me to better understand the inherent geometry of the hand and try a form that had previously scared me (and still does tbh, but a little less so). :)

@lauralana

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1mo

I changed a couple of things. I think it's a little better. Now on to the demo!

@fluffybuttss

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2mo

I feel like I did better by the third one (curled in fingers). I struggled with the proportions of the fingers in the first two and the fingers ended up being very thin and small

Rachel Dawn Owens

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2mo

I think you’re right. The 3rd one turned out the best. Maybe lean more towards making the fingers too large next time if you tend to make them too small.

Randy P

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2mo

My take on changing the orientation of the hands for level 2. Copied over my level 1 drawings for reference. Then I decided to do some rough thumbnails in blue first before drawing the larger alternate views. There was a lot of messy trial and error (and erasing!) along the way. These are the cleaned up final iterations.

Nicole

•

2mo

Randy P

•

2mo

Level 1 Hands. This was a good exercise and feel like I’m starting to gain intuition about how to orient the boxes. Some of the joints were awkward to represent so I just focused on getting the boxes in the right direction rather than trying to get a logically correct mechanical relationship. I’m curious to see how this is tackled in the demo vid.

Melanie Scearce

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2mo

These are looking great! Very clean. The only thing I noticed is on this pose, the side plane is showing a bit too much on the index finger. That finger is coming more towards us in space and so the side planes will be barely if at all visible.

@pmirko

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2mo

this was really hard for me, lots of wonky cubes....

Rachel Dawn Owens

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2mo

Your hard work paid off! These look great. All the different boxes turning in space look solid.

Aura

•

2mo

Doing these is oddly relaxing. I feel like the more exercises I do the better I grasp the concept (ha who’da thought), but I gotta stop here bc my goal isn’t to be really good at box hands. Any critique is greatly appreciated.

Melanie Scearce

•

2mo

Your mannequin hands have been looking great! Glad you found them relaxing and not stressful. It seems like you've really gotten the hang of this exercise. Just two very minor critiques: Be careful not to break the joints too much, I think it would make more sense for the tip of pointer finger to point in the direction of the flow of the rest of the finger in this one. Also, tapering the fingertips a bit more when they are coming directly towards the viewer will help the perspective.

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Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.