To draw the hand flat, palm facing up, visualize two exterior shapes: the hand wrist to fingertips without the thumb, and that same area with the thumb.
You’ll find that the first shape is a long, skinny oval attached to the wrist and that the latter is a lopsided egg shape.
Divide that shape in half lengthwise to give a rough guideline for the knuckles, and then mark off that line into four equal sections to indicate the fingers.
The fingers and thumb are all approximately the same width, so the guideline for the thumb should extend out to a quarter of the width of the hand. Notice that the wrist comes off the wrist at an angle.
The thumb curves away from the rest of the fingers at the halfway mark, and then curves in to form a graceful tip. Extend the partial marks on the halfway guideline up to the top of the oval to give a rough shape to the fingers, making sure to keep the lines parallel to the line that divides the thumb from the hand.
Erase guidelines and reshape the fingers and the outside of the hand. The pinky cuts in from the side and the thumb juts out at the bottom joint and then swoops down and in at the wrist.
Keep the anatomy of the hand in mind as you place lines for the joints and taper the fingers from base to tip.
There may be some tendons visible in the wrist, and there are four prominent lines in the palm.
Together, these four lines form a curvy “M” across the hand. The middle joint of the thumb lines up with the first two swoops, the third is more vertical, and the fourth crosses horizontally beneath the fleshy pad of the upper palm.
There are many more lines than this on the palm, but keep in mind that the more lines you add, the older the hand will look. If you just want to give a realistic indication of the lines, stick to these four.
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