Draw Anime Hands and Arms

If there's one nightmare that all character artists share, it's drawing hands. Even if you're a manga artist and you tend to simplify all body parts for stylization purposes, hands can't really be simplified that much. After all, it's not the details that make them difficult to draw—it's their flexibility. They're like a character of their own!

In this tutorial, I will show you how to draw anime hands by explaining the anatomy and structure behind them. I'll show you how to simplify the rhythm of the hands, how to start the drawing, and how to keep the proportions correct. I'll also show you how to draw the feet, which are another problematic issue for many artists. If you want to keep things simple, I'll show you how to draw hands and feet step by step as well.

This is part three of our series, How to Draw Anime. If you're interested in drawing manga in general, you may want to check these out, too:

1. The Anatomy of Anime Hands

Anime hands, though so smooth and simple, share their basic structure with real hands. If you understand this structure properly, everything will be easier for you! Let's start with the bones.

As you can see, the fingers are longer than they appear. They're "buried" inside the palm, which makes this part less flexible. That's why for practical reasons it's better to see fingers as starting where the palm ends. The thumb is an exception here—it's far away from the rest and can move on its own, not being limited by the palm.

Each finger has three joints. The sections between them get progressively shorter. The thumb again is an exception—it only has two joints, and its bones are similar in length.

Of course, we don't really need to know the bones—we need to know their function and how they affect the look of the hand. The simplified structure of the hand consists of:

the heads of the forearm bones (in the shape of a wide wristband)
the wrist (in the shape of an ellipsoid)
the palm (in a complex shape that we will discuss in a moment)
the thumb base (in the shape of an ellipsoid)
four three-segmented fingers
one two-segmented thumb

It's very important to memorize this fan-shape rhythm between the joints. It influences the look of the hand, regardless of the pose of each finger. It makes it easier to guess the position of each joint in relation to the others, even the thumb's.

But the surprising thing is that the fingers don't really differ that much in length. If you remove the fan rhythm and place the phalanges (the finger bones) side by side, you won't see that much of a difference. That's why, instead of memorizing the length of each finger's phalanges, you just need to remember the relation between them—the change in position as defined by the rhythm of a fan.

Proportions of Anime Hand

There are certain proportions that you need to know to draw a correct hand. You don't need to be strict about them, but keep them in mind and try to follow them.

First, the length of the index finger is roughly equal to the whole palm (along with the wrist joint hidden in its base).

The ideal proportion of the joints on the index finger is: a half for the second joint, then again a half for the third. However, in reality, the second joint often lies at about 40% of the finger's length. Feel free to chose the proportion that you like more—in stylized anime hands, the difference shouldn't be that visible!

The thumb is as long as or slightly shorter than the little finger, but for me it's best measured through its relation to the first finger—the thumb's tip doesn't reach its second joint.

2. How to Draw a Hand the Simple Way

But knowing the proportions of an anime hand is just one thing. How to start a drawing is another. Let's simplify what you already know to learn how to draw a proportional hand from scratch.

Step 1

You can simplify the wrist to an oval and the palm to a bigger oval. When you draw it this way, you can easily rotate the hand at the wrist, imagining it as a ball.

Step 2

Add an oval for the base of the thumb. To keep it proportional, make it slightly longer than half of the palm.

You need to remember that the thumb is not really a part of the palm, from a functional perspective. You need to imagine the whole hand three-dimensionally, not like a flat plane.

Step 3

The palm itself has an interesting form. Place your hand on a flat surface in a relaxed way. You'll notice that only the little finger and the thumb rest on the surface, while the others hang in the air. The palm isn't really flat, unless you spread the fingers on purpose.

So we have two problems here:

The palm must be curved.
The palm must have the fan rhythm on top.

These together create a very complex form—something hard to imagine, let alone draw! But there's a solution to this problem. We can group the finger in two pairs and connect each pair to a separate ellipsoid—just like the one the thumb is attached to. If you make one pair smaller (ring finger, little finger) and put it lower, you'll get the shape we need!

Still confused? Let's draw it in 2D. First one, longer oval...

... then a second, shorter oval. They should both start in a similar place, and spread slightly to the sides like an asymmetrical heart.

Step 4

You should have no problems with applying the fan rhythm now, and the fingers just have to follow it.

Here's the whole simplified structure of the hand for your reference.

Step 5

One more thing: the fan rhythm is not an accident. The fingers can go together, creating the shape of a mitten.

This flat mitten can be useful in some poses. Instead of drawing separate fingers, you can draw them together as one shape.

3. Details of the Hand

But proportions and shapes are not everything—without details, it's just a skeletal hand. Let's see what else we can add to our hands.

Details of the Palm

Hands are not only bones—they also have muscles and fat. These elements are mostly important on the palm side. Look at your own hand to locate these parts:

Each phalanx has a fat cushion underneath. This makes the fingers look curved below (in contrast to the flat, bony top).
All the fingers have a big cushion right on the base. It lies right under the big joint and covers a part of the first phalanx. Because of it, the fingers look shorter on the palm side, but just bend them to see where the bone really starts.
There are two cushions on the sides of the palm—one for the thumb, and one for the little finger. Because of them, there appears to be a hollow in the center of the palm.
Although the wrist bones seem to be buried inside the hand, there's one bone that sticks out (pisiform). You can feel and see it under the little finger's cushion.
A similar bony protrusion can be felt on the other side. It's the hand of the radius, the forearm bone. It sits slightly lower than the pisiform.