Ah Fck This.,, Art Is So Hard.,,, It’s So Frustrating :’ Like I Wanted To Create Some Fanart For

oh jeez. here’s comes the highlight of the day n the biggest/crazy part. okay well it’s not really crazy but feels like TO ME.

THE GAA PIECE!!!!! REMMEBER HOW I WANTED TO WORK ON IT!!!!! I FINALLY DID!!!!!’ WHOOOOP WHOOOOPP. how fitting it is that I do it, one day before the d-day ahaha ♥️

—I had like general idea of focusing on the guy with him bending like to get some kind of present and bending poses are like. the bane of my existence ngl. so I had to find refs and ha……..as I knew that refs didn’t exist. like I mean I couldn’t find it. where hell is my “bending slightly” ref pose?! none that’s where. so I just had to start it without it.

—so. the pose. 😐 I tried many attempts (it was two/three) and while while it looks kinda bending over. it felt too much or just — was off. but THEN…. OMG… I don’t even know where it came from (wait I think it was from general idea of robo/bean method I saw on proko vid) I just used two circles that are overalapping and made sure that one was more bending over and that fixed it???! I GOT IT IT???????? im freaking awesome that’s what. ahahah

—yeah yeah as you can see from my notes the pose wasn’t perfect felt off and stuff but anyways. yeah intially I had the idea of him actually bending to receive the present and it would be maybeee ambiguous who it is or maybe it’s the son. and like had floating ideas of sibs being there. but when I got to drawing the going to recieve the present, I was like hmmm. maybe it’s best that he’s already received it and has it in hand kind of scene? and I decided to just go with the son being in foreground (large) who is the one whl gave it.

—here is (above) my rough first sketch of the idea where I redraw the pose (using heh new method to do bending pose….!!! <333) and this time he’s like holding the present or whatever and did scribble of the son in then foreground. I couldn’t be bothered for actual trying to draw in son in foreground like that. like no.

—after that I went over to drawing over and doing the clothes and more finalised sketch and I was really liking it!!! it was coming along VERY nicely. but well. yeah there was a lot to do and focus as I did the notes there. but that was for future me….. sigh I think I knew on some level that this wasn’t just gonna work out. but well it doesn’t hurt to try you know.

—I came back after a bit, procrastinating really cuz I did NOT wanna draw this guy in foreground…! I knew how it’s gonna be like. but yeah I did get around to doing it. practice n shit first. well it’s not really practice lol.

—it was just trying to get an overall feel for how things should be placed/be like and it was just blocks that I was working with to help figure stuff out and yeah I don’t think I knew what I was doing but thought I gist of it (yeah. No. I didn’t 😔)

—yeah and then I drew pose for the son so I can get a feel for how the pose would be like and lololol it did feel… for the gesture… so stiff… I think it might have to do with how there’s no diff angles. I guess. and hey… you know what. looking at this now. it’s not actually bad…….? I think maybe there should be a more an overlap but not bad and I do think lol gaa is looking super awkward with his posing. looking at the sketch of the pose I can see it might have to do with how weirdly out the pelvis is…? when it feels like he’s not really bending over in this one hmmm. but anyways im happy to know that I can still came back to this one.

—anyways I did do a draw over the son pose and my GOSH was it hard to even try to find 💀💀💀💀 ref… I don’t know how to draw the stupid back of his or his clothes. and well. I guess that he would be wearing more casual clothes anyways but well. whatever.

—yeah after doing this I realised. yeah no sadly this is Was not going to work out 💀💀💀💀💀 (but like I said looking at this now from the future it’s the not bad??? I think may haps be too much distance between them butttt??? Also yeah the son’s pose looks weirdly stiff but yeah.)

—I was initially going to for a similar thing (going to reach for presents/holding presents) but well. I did try to doodle something after that but I was like. maybe I need to step back and think properly and stuff……

and so came the second idea….!!!!!!

insane. as soon as so woke up… add this dream of art.,.. so obviously I got out my iPad and IMMEDIATELY went to drawing. the bright light of my iPad killed me.

I spent so much time on that face in the last one 😌 I like that time of art moment… just working… looking at refs…. Refining….. 5.39

But…. One thing I’ve been sadly about lately is well…, sIGH…. How I feel like my figures don’t look all that nice…. It’s just kind of disheartening I suppose….. like it’s not bad… at this level… I GUESS…. But I want it to be better…. Ahhhhhh SIGH….. I have to a lot of practice and studies I suppose 😞 but nothing man. I’m getting better at Creating stuff, I think. IDK!!! it’s honestly hard to gauge my progress level. It’s not really a straight line…..

💀 zipping from wow i can’t for shit i’m so sad abt it all look at this and hey okay it wasnt actually so bad and hey it’s looking good and hey doing this constructing step step thing is kinda working out to getting motivated by vids and doing quick poses and oh wow i’m getting hang of it yay to lets goooo and back to wtf i can’t draw shit man i want to cryyyy

The big post of things about hands!!! I don’t consider myself qualified to teach art at this point in my life, but I don’t see any harm in sharing observations I have made. In learning to draw hands over the past few months I’ve tried to take a lot of notes, with the end goal of hopefully creating a video tutorial one day. I personally learn better from videos than written or illustrated instructions, but I’ve never found any one video that really demystifies drawing hands. I believe that in order to tackle such a difficult subject it is important to understand what makes it difficult, and this is not often addressed. If you understand the problems you can systematically solve them…

Drawing the hand is almost like drawing a whole person. Similar number of “major masses” and a big range of motion.

Because the hand is so versatile, it’s hard to pick a pose when practicing. Most individual body parts are drawn from different angles, whereas the hand must be drawn from different angles and in different poses.

Hands have a lot of moving parts and from any given angle many of these will be partially or wholly obscured by other parts. Drawing “through the form” results in confusing construction lines that are difficult to interpret.

Hands are expressive and give big clues as to what a character is doing. Odd or unnatural hand poses detract heavily from your overall piece. Most people avoid drawing hands because of this.

The thumb flexes along a different plane than the four fingers and sits on its own deviant metacarpal. Drawing the hand in perspective is hard enough, but adding the thumb in relation to the rest of the hand at a convincing angle? Forget about it!

Hands are typically simplified into box and cylinder forms, but almost every part of the hand is a combination of angles and curves. No one simplified form really describes these parts.

Hands interact with other objects, like all the time. They’re tricky enough to draw on their own… this isn’t helping anyone.

Hands have a lot of bony landmarks, veins, and tendons, all visible at the surface level. These are obstacles when trying to render them realistically.

Hands are asymmetrical from every angle. Every part, every time.

I think that about covers the major issues we face when trying to draw hands. Now here are some observations and facts that you can use to fight back!

The width of the first three fingers (index, middle and ring) is the same as the width of the wrist. The pinky and thumb both emanate from the parts of the palm that overhang this line.

The palm of the hand is more of a pentagon than a rectangle (Thanks, Jim Lee!).

The length of the middle finger is approximately the same as the length and width of the palm.

The length of the phalanxes (finger bones in this case) diminishes in size as they get further from the palm. The second (middle) phalanx is 2/3 the length of the first (proximal), and the third (distal) is 2/3 the length of the second. You don’t really notice this since the first knuckle is “inside” the palm and we tend to think of the fingers as starting at the “finger crotch”.

The thumb has no middle phalanx, only a proximal and a distal one.

The thumb is rotated 90 degrees from the angle of the four fingers. So the fingernails point “up” and the thumbnail points “to the side”. This obviously changes depending on the pose, but the thumbnail never really points “up” with the other fingernails unless it is bent backwards, as in poses when all five fingers are pressed against a flat surface. It never really points “down” unless the hand is clamping or pinching… or operating a sock puppet.

The thumb has to sit lower than the palm so that it can flex underneath the hand. The first knuckle of the thumb is almost as far below the index finger as the pinky is far away from the index finger.

The “webbing” of the thumb connects exactly half way up the palm.

Hands are asymmetrical from every angle. Every part, every time.

That is all the knowledge I have so far, and now you have it too! I don’t think any tutorial, video or otherwise, can ever teach you as much as the thousand observations you will make from drawing a thousand hands. There is no substitute for practice. So practice by looking at your hand from the normal vantage point, and from a mirror. Practice from 3D reference like the Handy Art Tool. Practice by copying other artists and animators whose hands appeal to you. Most of all, practice from imagination. PRACTICE! Below is every reference that I can remember that I’ve personally used while practicing hands:

http://www.handyarttool.com/

http://youtu.be/BAQb-5VKxmg

http://nk-chan.deviantart.com/art/mini-hand-tutorial-68320552

http://kibbitzer.deviantart.com/art/Hands-Reference-321600866

http://kibbitzer.deviantart.com/art/Hands-Reference-2-322546252

http://kibbitzer.deviantart.com/art/Hands-Reference-3-330102275

http://kibbitzer.deviantart.com/art/Hands-reference-4-428109721

http://characterdesignnotes.blogspot.com/2010/09/hand-reference.html

http://characterdesignnotes.blogspot.com/2010/09/hand-reference-part-two.html

http://characterdesignnotes.blogspot.com/2010/11/hand-reference-part-three.html

Do me a favor and share this around, will you? We could all use more light shed on this subject. -Aaron

COMEBACK….!!!

did have a brief moment yesterday of crippling loss… I think was before yesterday not sure to check but MAN… THE GRIEF THAT HUT ME ABOUT ART… like you know when do art that’s Super Nice and Good and YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSLER!!!! AND UR LIKE IM IMPROVING(TM) and you take a week break cuz hand and needed and come back and god. You CANT EVEN!!!! And it feels so like you have regressed so badly and then you do rush art figure prac and THATS SO BAD and you can’t even look at other art people’s art cuz it makes me you sad and then tho you look at ur recent art (thank me for continuedly to move stuff toup to recent so I can see what my recent art is like) ANYWAYS…..!!!!!! like oh. oh OH. it wasn’t necessary amazing first go but I do def remember it not being this frustrating and anyways it at least made me feel better. come today and hey you know what! I felt like art mood! but it wasn’t until I was hit with hey. oh my gosh. DRAW TURTLES AND MY GUY THAT AU?? OJAY!!!! and I was gonna. but then I saw my figure thing and was like what if. warm first cuz you know.

and you know!!!!! I really should do this warm up!!!! It felt much better than the other figure try.

I feel like. doing figure parc after coming out of trying to do a. drawing and it Not Going well and I feel like then I approach my figure parc as well… “seeing that im stilll good at art” but I think it’s more should be relearning and practising and learning etc and picking stuff up again since THATS NOTMAL! And past me wouldn’t be able to pick this up fast as I am now!!!! And ahahah yeah side views back spine it seems is like Being A Point I really need to observe and learn now cuz MY GOSH I need to. Also because MY GOSH I always draw so many side profiles and I need to save my self this grief……!!!!!

I want to draw so badly!!!! But no!!!! forcing my self into this break.

back to my okay i think i’m getting the hang of this

💀 zipping from wow i can’t for shit i’m so sad abt it all look at this and hey okay it wasnt actually so bad and hey it’s looking good and hey doing this constructing step step thing is kinda working out to getting motivated by vids and doing quick poses and oh wow i’m getting hang of it yay to lets goooo and back to wtf i can’t draw shit man i want to cryyyy

ahhhh came across other peoples figure practices and im so jealous…. It looks so good….

but at the same time i know that my practice now isn’t like an effective method. if o wanted to get better… i should study forms of ribcage n pelvis and how they interaction in diff poses/angles and the forms of the muscles on them….. but at the same I really can’t be bothered with stuff like that so my skill level makes sense but ahhhhh its gets to me some times fjfjjfkdkdk. I feel like best way to motive me is to just draw character shit and be like fckkkk if I want to draw this I have to be able to learn how to…… but also drawing character shit is takes Effort and I can’t be bothered either right now…. But to give myself credit I did a lot of character drawings (okay it was two recently but i also did a lot of stuff last month!!! so!!!!) im actually doing a lot 😌

and I DID get better!!!!!!!!!! like two months ago…. I couldn’t do shit…. as I can now 😌

just stuff I have to consistently remind myself when I get depressed about this stuff ahahaha

Thanks so much for your ask! I’ve meant to do a tutorial like this for a long time. This is the way that I draw big girls, though it’s quite a short and basic tutorial. I hope it helps!

the “area of gain” part was pretty much taken directly from -here-, a VERY informative and helpful tutorial. Here’s a couple of tutorials that I think are pretty good: link and link.

I don't have the prettiest hands but I took some pictures for fun and for reference today