Hey Skelly can you give me a hand with something?
Hey my name is Stan Prokopenko and welcome to Proko!
It's important to understand the bones if you want your drawings to be anatomically
solid, and if you ever want to invent.
This is especially true with the hands.
Science tells us that hands are like, 90% bone.
Get this part right, and the rest is easy.
Thanks Science.
No Problem!
Let's start with proportion.
The length of the whole hand is about equal to the length of the face.
Within the hand there are three important divisions... the wrist, palm, and fingers.
Or, to use the bone terms, the carpus, metacarpus, and phalanges.
We can quickly and accurately find these proportions with the halving method.
Take the distance from the wrist to the end of the middle finger and divide it in half.
This marks the end of the metacarpus, at the knuckles.
To find the three finger joints, divide in half again, and again.
The knuckles don't line up horizontally, so draw the rest of the fingers a little bit
shorter than you drew the middle finger.
Find the knuckles with curved rhythms.
You can divide that last unit in half again to find the fingernail.
The webbing of the palm extends beyond the knuckle, about halfway to the first joint.
So, fingers appear longer when looking at the back of the hand and shorter when looking
at the palm.
Keep that in mind when you’re measuring.
The halving method is based on the length of the bone, not the skin.
That said, let's jump right into the wrist.
Carpus
There are eight wrist bones, and each one is completely irregular.
Nope, they're not easy, but they're not important, either!
Individual carpal bones are basically never visible, even when the wrist is fully flexed,
so you don't need to study each one!
Instead, let's study the big form.
From above, the wrist bones have a half-circle shape.
They pop right into the concave socket of the radius.
Together the wrist bones form a tunnel, hollow on the palm side, which tendons and nerves
pass through to get to the fingers.
This is the "carpal tunnel" of "carpal tunnel syndrome".
Remember to rest and stretch, everybody.
Metacarpus
"Metacarpus," meaning "beyond the wrist," refers to the bones of the palm.
Their overall length and width make a square shape.
The palm has distinct top, bottom, and side planes, so think of the metacarpus as a box
plus a triangle for the metacarpal of the thumb.
That tunnel shape we saw at the wrist echoes throughout the whole hand.
Here, the palm is hollow, and the highest point of the "tunnel" is at the middle finger.
This is especially visible when you're drawing a fist.
The middle finger knuckle sticks out the most length-wise, too.
The metacarpals and phalanges use roughly the same design.
The shaft can be simplified into a cylinder or box form that tapers to be thinner towards
the fingertips.
It's straight along the top, but concave along the bottom.
The far end has a convex bump that fits into the concavity of the next bone.
The metacarpals can be easily felt and seen on the back of your hand, especially at the
knuckles.
The form of the knuckles is a wide box with a ball at the joint.
The top plane between the ball and box is a trapezoid.
Phalanges
Each finger, has three sections, called phalanges, connected by hinge joints.
The thumb is different.
It only has two phalanges past the metacarpal.
But, I prefer to think of metacarpal of the thumb as its third phalanx.
As far as joints and functionality, it's more similar to the phalanges of the fingers, than
the metacarpals of the fingers.
As I said, technically, the thumb has only two phalanges, but because its metacarpal
is extra flexible, It has great range of motion...
The fingers do not extend from the palm in straight, parallel lines, but actually curve
towards the middle finger.
It's subtle, but it's there.
The form of the phalanges follows the same pattern we saw with the metacarpals.
Each section is boxy with a slight arc at the bottom.
The fingertips taper off ending with a flat plane.
When sketching fingers, you can use a sphere to place the joints and a cylinder to connect
them.
Think of the palm and wrist as boxes.
We'll talk about the surface forms of the hands in more detail in a future lesson.
For now, let's focus on this basic wireframe.
If you’d like to see a detailed narrated demonstration of me drawing dynamic hand bones,
check out the premium version of this lesson.
Assignment
You assignment is to simplify the hand bones into their basic forms.
Draw from life using your own hands or draw from the 3D models of the hand bones I provide
you.
Proko People, you’ll find still images of the hand bones in the description under the
video.
Premium Proko People, on your Premium Proko Dashboard, you have 3D models of four dynamic
hand bone poses that you can draw from any angle.
You might even try drawing the same hand from multiple angles.
And if you really want to challenge yourself, look at the model from one angle, but draw
it from a different angle.
After you’re done drawing, you can rotate the camera to match your drawing angle to
check your accuracy.
This exercise will help develop your ability to invent hands from imagination.
So, we have a premium section for students that want to learn more.
The premium section has extended lessons with more information about the topic.
It also has additional drawing demonstrations.
If you do the assignments for each lesson, these demos serve as the answers for the assignment,
so you can check your work.
There’s an ebook version of each lesson that you can download as a PDF.
Print them out or keep them on your device so you can quickly review the lessons.
And finally the Premium section has 3d models that you can spin around, study, and draw
from any angle.
If you don’t want your drawings to look like this, go to proko.com/anatomy.
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