How to Draw Hands (+Free Download)

So, after you understand that hands have 5 fingers each (in most cases...) and some fingers are longer than others... What else is there left to learn?

The short answer is: A whole lot! The long answer is: Anatomy...! Both answers came out rather short but drawing hands takes a long time to master either way... Did I make myself clear? No...? Then you'd be better off downloading the free tutorial in this article!

Free Tutorial

This is no ordinary free tutorial, folks...! Is it okey if I call you folks...? No, I'm not from Texas... I just wanted to sound cool...

Download this .zip complete with a .pdf detailing every step you'll need to learn how to draw a hand and a video tutorial in which you'll be shown the process in real time.

The palm, the fingers, glove-like reference shapes, different positions, the space between the fingers and much more awaits you inside this download! Actually I listed all that awaits you... Don't await more! Are you tired of reading never-ending directionless banter? Then draw, god damn it!

Why cartoon characters often only have 4 fingers

Now that the important information is under your finger tips, it's time for the nonsense factoids!

Cartoons give artists a chance to come up with characters with shapes and physical traits that would be impossible to have in real life... So you might think: "Make them all have 6 fingers per hand, just for the kicks! But that means the animator now needs to animate more fingers for each character in each scene, episode, season, spin-off series, movie adaptation...!

So the less fingers the better! But if you made them have only 3 fingers or 2, counting the thumb... Why wouldn't I count the thumb...? Then all your characters will look like aliens! But with 4 fingers you can resemble a human hand close enough and it makes the animator's work easier!

Walt Disney once said, if Mickey Mouse had five fingers his hands would “look like a bunch of bananas”. I'm sure there's a creepy pasta out there where that's the case...

Another popular choice is designing handless characters, like The Powerpuff Girls, Doraemon, Winnie the Pooh... So that when they pick up stuff with their "stumps" it looks like it's either glued or magnetized by them. You can even count the movie "Cars"... They pick up stuff with their tires, though...!

Okey, I think that is enough nonsense for today... We went from hands to "stumps" and tires! Not a great combination of words...

In Domestika you can not only learn how to draw hands, but also the whole human body and even tires! You don't need a tutorial to learn how to draw "stumps", though:

- Join our Courses on Illustration
- Course on Drawing Anatomy for Beginners
- How to draw a realistic cat