Drawing 3D Fingers

Click to enlarge

You made a pretty sweet sketch of the bent finger on the previous page, right? That's Good! But now you're thinking that most of the time you'll see the hand and fingers in three dimensions rather than just two. For example, how would you go about drawing this hand on the right - Right?

What we've talked about so far as far as fingers go is drawing them in two dimensions. But you're right, most hands that you'll want to draw will have three dimensions to them. Like the image above - all the fingers are curling towards you, so how would you draw that and make it look correct? Here's how....

Let's start where we did earlier. We're looking down at a segment of a finger. But rather than turning the segment all the way 90�, let's only turn it about 45�. The dark grey represents the back surface, and the lighter grey represents the front surface, the surface we looked at first.

Here's what the finger tip looks like turned at 45� when the finger tip is straight. Now combine three 45� segments, each segment being smaller than the one to it's right. This is a finger that is straight, and extended out, but at an angle so that you're not looking straight at it.

Now draw the three 45� angled segments as bent. The rod running along the top of the segments is still there, but it's not shown here. Imagine that it's there so you don't curve the segments like a long, skinny water balloon.  so, in order to draw the "Claw Hand" from the top of this page, you'll draw each finger like we drew this one, but the angles that you depict will be different than the finger shown here. In fact, if you flip this finger so that it's curling to the right, that's pretty close how you'd draw the ring finger of the "Claw Hand" above. Again, don't bother with the minute detail, do a quick sketch and eyeball the proportions of the "Claw Hand". Click to enlarge Go ahead and try drawing the "Claw Hand" at the top of the page. Click on the image of the "Claw Hand" and then print the larger picture. Some things to notice about the "Claw Hand": The tip of the index finger is pointing straight at your eye, so the third segment of the index finger can be drawn as a two dimensional oval. The third segment of the pinky is also fairly two dimensional - we're seeing it from the top. Click on the image to the right to see the process of drawing the "Claw Hand".