How to draw hands at different angles

Hands go wrong for the same reason heads do: they get drawn as an outline of fingers instead of as a solid that turns. The fix is the same too. Build one simple shape you can turn in your head, then hang the details on it.

How to draw a hand in four steps

Start with the palm facing you.

Draw the palm as a flat box, a little longer than it is wide. Its top edge is where the fingers start.
Make that top edge an arc, not a straight line. The knuckle of the middle finger sits highest and the little finger's sits lowest, so the fingers start at different heights.
Hang the four fingers from the arc. Each has three segments, the one nearest the palm the longest, and the middle finger is a little shorter than the palm; how to draw the palm of a hand measures it at about three quarters from the palm side. How to draw fingers measures where each tip lands and how each finger splits.
Attach the thumb to the side of the palm, not the top. Its base is the fleshy pad that takes up the lower corner of the palm, and it angles away from the fingers.

The open hand with its palm toward you. The box under the fingers is the palm, and the knuckles of the fingers sit on an arc across its top.

Check the arc before you draw any finger. If the knuckles line up straight, the fingers will look like they were added one at a time, however carefully you shade them.

Turn the box to its edge

Turn the hand a quarter turn and the box shows its narrow side. The palm becomes a thin slab and the fingers stack in front of each other instead of sitting side by side.

The same hand at 90 degrees, from the little-finger side. The palm is a slab, the fingers overlap, and the thumb stands out past the palm because it sits on its own side of the box.

This view is where the thumb gives itself away. It stands clear of the palm and points in a different direction from the fingers, because it is attached to the side of the box. Drawn on the front of the palm, it flattens the hand at every angle. How to draw a hand from the side measures this view from both edges: how thick the slab is, the wrist under it and where the thumb tip lands.

In between, at a three-quarter turn, the far fingers start to hide behind the near ones and the palm shortens. Draw the box first at that angle and let the fingers follow it.

At 45 degrees the palm narrows and the far fingers start to overlap. The thumb still angles off the side.

Draw the back of the hand

From the back the box is the same, but the surface changes. The knuckles stand up as bumps on the arc and the tendons fan out toward each one, fading out above the wrist. how to draw the back of a hand measures this view. The fingers also measure longer than from the palm side: on the palm they start at about the height of the webs, and on the back the knuckles sit lower.

The back of the hand at 180 degrees. The knuckles sit on the same arc as on the palm side, and the tendons run toward each one, fading out above the wrist.

Close the hand around something

A gripping hand is the open hand with every finger curled around one shape. Draw the object first. Then wrap the fingers around it like bands around a pipe, each one following the object's curve, with the knuckle arc now on the outside of the fist. The grip is measured, finger by finger, in how to draw a hand holding something.

Lincoln's right hand, from Leonard Volk's 1860 life cast, holding a section of broom handle. The fingers wrap the handle in bands and the thumb closes over them.

Turn the fist and the same rules hold. From the thumb side, the end of the handle shows nearly round, and the thumb and the curled index finger close around it. From the back, the knuckles stand up as a ridge across the top, the index and middle about level and the ring and little lower.

The same hand at 90 degrees. The handle's end shows nearly round, and the index finger and thumb close around it.

From the back at 0 degrees, the index and middle knuckles sit about level and the ring and little knuckles step down.

Practice it

Pick one hand and draw it at four angles: palm, edge, back and a three-quarter view in between. Start each one with the box and the knuckle arc, and add the fingers only after the box reads as turned. Five minutes a drawing is enough. Then do the same with a hand around a cup or a pen.

The figures in this guide come from hands and feet, volume 1: an open hand, both of Lincoln's hands from Volk's casts and a standing foot, each drawn at sixteen angles, 22.5 degrees apart. Lincoln's left hand, closed loosely, is measured in how to draw a fist. The same volume's standing foot has its own guide, how to draw feet at different angles. For the same approach on the head, start with how to draw the head at any angle.