Hand placement

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Jeff Hebert

Hammerknight has put together a great quick guide to how to properly place hands on your illustrations. HeroMachine 2 didn’t let you change anything from the default spots so it wasn’t an issue, but with HM3 you can rotate and move and flip the arms and hands however you like, and sometimes that can cause problems. Even we professional illustrators sometimes have to break out a mirror and check out how things are supposed to go, so I am sure you’ll find this wonderful guide very handy. Thanks HK!

About Jeff Hebert

Jeff is a 42 year old city boy who has somehow found himself located in Colorado, fulfilling his lifetime dream of making a living drawing super-heroes all day.
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12 Responses to Hand placement

  1. CPrime says:
    February 18, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    Another great job, HK.

  2. kingmonkey says:
    February 18, 2010 at 3:47 pm

    I appreciate this pointer. I’ve seen a few otherwise stellar creations ruined by bizarre hands. It can be jarring, like people missing ears, and all those fine details.

  3. Gene says:
    February 18, 2010 at 4:24 pm

    Lol, one of my entries was missing his ears. Still kick myself over it.

    What I’ve been struggling with is getting the hands on the hips pose. Any suggestions?

  4. The Atomic Punk says:
    February 18, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    @Gene: Please, no Macarena!

  5. Hammerknight says:
    February 18, 2010 at 6:21 pm

    @Gene the hands on the hips are hard right now. Maybe Jeff might put in a set that works with the hips in the future.

  6. Gene says:
    February 18, 2010 at 10:29 pm

    @Hammerknight – Thanks, I figured, but i thought I’d toss the question out there to see if anyone had a thought. So Jeff, in it’s your ‘hands’

  7. Hammerknight says:
    February 19, 2010 at 6:31 am

    @Gene let me go through a few of my pictures, I know I have done one or two with hands on hips, but I need to look at them to remember how I did them.

  8. Jeff Hebert says:
    February 19, 2010 at 7:49 am

    I have arms that allow FISTS on hips, using the basic fist-hands, but not the splay-fingered open hand on fist hands. Very doubtful I’ll be adding that.

  9. kingmonkey says:
    February 19, 2010 at 9:59 am

    Gene, you can use the open, flat hands. Place them in front of the legs, thumb and all. Then place a little rectangle from the backgrounds, shrunk right down, and the same colour as the pants/legs, over top of the thumb. Then a few lines as necessary to ‘seal’ the leg (the same colour as the legs’ line colour).

  10. kingmonkey says:
    February 19, 2010 at 10:19 am

    Then again, with the more detailed pants, that becomes a bit more difficult/time-consuming. Here is an example of what I’m-a talkin’ ’bout.
    http://picasaweb.google.com/soupcannon/HeroesAndVillains#5439989596638089074

  11. Gero says:
    February 19, 2010 at 11:31 am

    Anyone have Liefeld’s e-mail? I think he needs to read this…

  12. Gene says:
    February 19, 2010 at 1:43 pm

    Thanks HK, I’ll give it a shot.