11/24/15 - Hand Animation Attempt

A somewhat failed attempt at animating a cartoon hand, haha.  I think I captured a fairly nice flow overall, but there's a lot of inconsistencies throughout the short loop.  The thumb switching sides is probably the most notable.  LOL

I definitely need some more practice sketching static hand poses from my own imagination, as well as a better knowledge of Flash (or whatever other program I might use for animation), before I should try anything more complex than this.

11/22/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands

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And now I'm finally back to sketching freehand.  I'm sure there's a pun in there somewhere… ;)  Basically I just sketched these while glancing at my left hand every now and then, posing for visual reference.  I was not trying to emulate any particular style or pose from another character, but simply letting myself sketch freely.  I still have a lot of practice left to go before I really get a hang of things, but I think I've definitely improved after sketching all those preexisting characters.

11/20/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Phineas and Ferb)

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Winding down with my hand sketches now.  This should be my last sketch using reference from existing material.  My final reference for today's post?  Various characters from another great animated series: "Phineas and Ferb".  Much like Hey Arnold, this style is way more what I had originally imagined when I first thought of doing these "cartoon" hands.  Again, I kept things fairly rough since I wanted to try to pump out more in the 10-15 min. timeframe.

11/17/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Hey Arnold)

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Been missing a few posts lately, just been busy with a lot of stuff and didn't get around to them.  Or it might be that I'm starting to get a little tired of sketching hands, haha.  But I have a few more posts of them to go, so I'll finish them up and then who knows what I'll do!  lol

Today's post is all about the show "Hey Arnold!".  Not specifically Arnold himself, but just various hand designs in general.  THIS type of design is probably what I was really imagining when I first thought about sketching "cartoon" hands, as opposed to more realistic designs like Aladdin, Beast, Chernabog, etc.  Fairly simple and straightforward, pretty much always the "4 fingers" design, and no real texture details.  Perfect for making a long-running animated series for instance, or in my case short web-series (as I vaguely have an idea for one right now).  More info on that in like 2 years.  LOL

I didn't clean it up as much as I usually do today; I just wanted to focus more on quantity under time constraints for this one.

11/14/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Bugs Bunny)

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Basically just a slightly thinner version of Mickey Mouse's hands.  I forget what the origins of these "white gloves" are.

11/12/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Nicodemus)

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Now this guy seriously has some of the coolest animated hands ever.  I spent way longer on him than I should have, but I had fun.  My first non-Disney character: Nicodemus from "The Secret of NIMH".

11/10/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Milo)

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Milo from "Atlantis".  A similar design to Kuzco's, again very stylized.  It'd be interesting to compare those two purely on their differences in body language.  I had a bit of trouble with this design as well though.  You'd think I'd have an easier time with these stylized designs, since they're relatively simple compared to the Beast or Chernabog or something.  Yet, for whatever reason they're still more difficult for me.  I've also never really been a fan of this sort of "box" design with square edges as the fingertips, but it's certainly a unique design nonetheless and has always stuck out to me ever since I was a little kid.

11/9/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Kuzco)

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One of the thinner male characters, Kuzco from "The Emperor's New Groove".  They look okay, but I feel like I have trouble sketching the more stylized designs like these.  That bottom pose looks way too much like E.T. to me.  haha

11/8/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Tarzan)

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This guy was pretty fun to draw, though I did take a bit longer with him.  Tarzan from… well, "Tarzan".

11/7/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Timon)

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Timon from "The Lion King".  Had a bit of trouble with this one.  I don't think I could quite figure out the shape of his fingers/fingertips.  Looks alright now, but this one took me notably longer than my normal posts.

11/6/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Mushu)

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This guy was really fun to draw.  Mushu from "Mulan".

11/5/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Baloo)

Still sketching cartoon hands… or should I say… paws.  Gonna do a few of the more humanoid animal characters now.  First up: Baloo from "The Jungle Book".  Probably the simplest of my hand sketches so far, and a very pleasant design in my opinion.

Interesting to note, he seems to continually switch between having 3 or 4 claws.  I imagine this is to make sketching and painting easier for wide shots vs. tight shots, though I'd just assume stick with 3 claws for everything so there's no discrepancy.

11/4/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Cruella)

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Getting back to sketching cartoon hands again, trying to finish up the rest that I planned to do.  Today's post: Cruella de Vil (I think that's how you spell it?).  Man, she must be the thinnest Disney character ever!  Although it could be Yzma...

P.S. I should totally devote a post to studying the way they did Cruella's smoke effects in the film.  There's at least one shot in particular that has this really unique style, more like flames or something.  It's pretty fascinating.

10/14/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Hades)

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Continuing on with another Disney villain… Hades from "Hercules".  Now here's a really unique hand design, what I can only describe as a cross between a spider web and a deck of spades.  I actually had a lot of fun with this one.  He's a thinner character, and I usually have trouble with those, but for whatever reason this one went smoothly.  I think it's probably the cool, slick gestures.  Maybe I'm just better at characters with really extreme poses, haha.

Also, I found a new way to sketch hands during the course of this one (inspired by Hades' combination of hard edges and smooth curved lines), so I'm gonna try that more in the future to see if it gives me more control.  Below is an example of what I mean (from rough to finished):

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10/13/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Chernabog)

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Now THIS guy has some seriously cool poses!  And what better subject for a post on Oct. 13 than Chernabog from Disney's "Fantasia"!  I had to do a bit of guesswork with these since his look is mostly based on lighting a silhouetted figure (which makes for a VERY cool look by the way), but I think they turned out really nice.  And I just HAD to color it in this time.  :)

As always, here's the raw sketch as well:

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10/12/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Beast) (Part 3)

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And that concludes my sketches of the Beast.  Stay tuned for the next character.  ;)

10/11/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Beast) (Part 2)

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A few more sketches of the Beast's hands.  There's three more poses I wanna try though, so I'll probably continue on with "Part 3" tomorrow.  Then after that I'll pick someone new.  I'm enjoying the Beast a lot though, probably because all his poses are so extreme.  Approx. 16 min. total.

10/10/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Beast) (Part 1)

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So I'm going for the more extreme hand designs now (i.e. not standard male/female characters, more like creature characters, humanoid, cartoony, etc.).  And my first subject is the Beast from "Beauty and the Beast".  Had a lot of fun with this one.  Took me a bit longer though, cause there's a lot of details.  But the thicker fingers made it seem easier to me, and overall I felt I had a lot of control while sketching these.  Approx. 16 min.

I'm planning to do some more poses of the Beast in tomorrow's post since I only got to do 2 day, hence this is "Part 1".

10/9/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Belle)

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And now Belle from "Beauty and the Beast".  There are subtle differences between her design and Jasmine's, but overall there's not that much of a difference (I assume this is also the case for most other realistic characters [as opposed to the more "cartoony" ones], sharing a fairly standard design [both male and female]).

Had a bit of difficulty with this one, just like Jasmine's.  For whatever reason, female hands seem harder to me, probably the generally thinner fingers and the extra nail details and such.  Somehow those seem to makes errors in the drawings a little less forgiving.  I went a little over the time limit with this one (and for only 3 hands!).  Approx. 18 min. total.

I don't plan on doing an entire retrospective of Disney character hands, but I assume that the real differences in hand designs will be from the more "cartoony" characters, like Genie for instance.  So I'll try to stick to those from here on out.  Can't wait to start animating!  :D

10/8/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Jasmine)

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First female character now with Jasmine.  For whatever reason I had a bit harder time with this one, probably because her fingers are much thinner than the previous characters.  It gave me the illusion that they were longer than they actually were, so I was having a hard time gauging distances.  Interesting to note, only occasionally does Jasmine have nails.  Approx. 18 minutes.

Not sure how many more characters I'll do.  I'll probably do a few more Disney characters then go for some other sources.  My plan is to get a general feel for drawing hands of various styles, then do a small freestyle animation on my own.