*Pops head in doorway* *GASP* DiD sOMonE sAy BoB rOss?! I Luv him. He’s such a boss <3

LuV HIMmmMmMmm *Slips back out of thread door*

@Leeli I gochu

Hmm, 3/4 views... I’m not sure. They’ve always been the easiest way to draw people for me. I get to show the perfect amount of facial structure and don’t have to worry about symmetry. Ooh, you know what, I’ll draw a face from head-on, 3/4 and profile, and see what I notice.

Noses from straight on are really hard; in 3/4, it’s just a matter of the angle of the line. Or lines, if the nose is super prominent and/or I’m showing more than the tip. Cheekbones are really fun in 3/4. Push them up, down, out, in, and don’t even worry about the other one if you don’t want to! Now, what else? 

Okay, so I think that one eye is more or less in the center of a 3/4 view. Horizontally, anyway. And the other eye will be right up against the edge of the face and maybe sort of squished. Like, smaller in some way. Shift it closer or farther to make subtler changes to the angle. The neck starts well away from the chin (if it’s a regular sized neck), and the back of the head seems to extend about as far away from it as the chin does. The mouth is centered right below the nose, of course, and one side will be shorter than the other. 

That’s about all I can figure out. And this is just the way I do it, of course. If anyone knows of variations or anything, please do tell! It would be really cool to hear about. Or see. Or try! 

As for hands, I love hands. Love. So much. They’re so pretty, oh my Kyngdom, so, so pretty. It probably helps that I love the way my own hands look. *ahem* Anyway. 

Uh. Hmm. Again, I don’t really know what to tell you. I used to draw hands kind of like blocks? Not even differentiating the thumbs most of the time. Actually, I still do that now and then. I was kind of going for the shapes on the ends of a drawing mannequin thingy’s arms. What do you call those things again? Is drawing mannequin the right term? Either way, it might be good practice to try that. Just ovals, or pointed ovals, or weird abstract shapes that get across the notion of a hand. Then once you can bust out one of those in a flash, start experimenting with dividing up the space inside those potatoes into fingers. Oh, and wrists!

Wrists are really pretty, too. They’re super easy; if the hand is hanging down straight, just make an indent where the wrist is on the thumb side, and make sure the arm is tapered so that it looks natural. Also knuckles are really cool and you should look at them a lot. And the thumb ends like a drumstick, meaty near the palm, and ends on the other end around the first joint of the index finger. I’m still struggling a bit with thumbs and their craziness, but—oh. I just looked at my hand and solved one of my problems. They split off halfway up the palm! *throws confetti* 

It’s also cool to draw the wrinkles in hands. And that weird little heel at the wrist on the opposite side of (from?) the thumb, and the way the edge curves out slightly between it and the first pinkie joint sometimes. Pay attention to that pinkie joint, it goes out further than the pinkie. If that makes sense. Man, hands really are like ovals... I’m getting rambly and nonsensical. Why am I up this late, anyway?

Here’s a Post-it summary of basically everything I was just talking about! 

Ooh, one more thing: Give hands tapered fingertips to make them look more feminine, and wider, more rectangular ones to make them more masculine. There can also be a lot of variation with the proportions of the ring finger to the index, and either of those to the middle finger. 

@Leeli: I found a really good how-to for drawing hands once that I use to draw my hands now! I don't think I can post the actual thing because it's not my work, but I'll try drawing my own version at some point to give you a visual. For now, here's a step-by-step:

1. Draw a trapezoid. Try to draw the vertical sides longer than the horizontal ones. Each line should be very slightly curved.

2. Draw 5 simple lines - four from the top of the trapezoid, one out the side. 

3. Connect them! Add some more lines until they look like finger shapes.

4. Erase the guidelines and you've got yourself a hand!

You can mess around with this and use it for all sorts of hand shapes. 

@Viola: I've been looking for a new set of inking pens. Would you recommend yours? Do you like them? And also, do you happen to know if they're waterproof or water resistant? (If you don't know, you can always wet your finger and brush it over an inked line a couple of times-- if it smears, it's not waterproof.) I like to watercolour my sketches but my pens aren't waterproof, and that's led to some... interesting situations.

~Starseeker 

Topping this thread cause I have a question! 

How do you draw shoulders? I can neeeever get them right.