How to draw the back of a hand: its shape, the knuckles and the tendons

The back of a hand is easy to draw as a flat square with the knuckles in a straight row across the top and the tendons ruled straight down to the wrist. The open hand measured here is drawn differently. The back narrows toward the wrist, the knuckles sit on an arc that drops further on the little-finger side, and the tendons lean together and fade out before they reach the wrist. This guide measures one open right hand from hands and feet, volume 1, seen straight on from the back. The fingers themselves, from the back and the palm, are measured in how to draw fingers.

Everything is measured against the back's length: from the middle knuckle, at the top of the knuckle arc, down to the wrist line the drawing marks across the bottom of the hand. Heights are fractions of that length, counted down from the top.

The shape of the back

The back is a little longer than it is wide. Measured across the top of the box, where the knuckle arc meets the edges, it is about seven eighths of its length.

The wrist, below the box, is about two thirds as wide as the top of the box. The drawing builds the back as a box that narrows toward the wrist: its bottom edge is about three quarters as wide as its top.

The middle finger is nearly as long as the back. From the back, a finger starts at its knuckle, which sits lower than the webs between the fingers, so the fingers look longer here than from the palm side.

The knuckle arc

The middle knuckle is the highest. The drawing puts the knuckles on an arc over the top of the box, and at the middle finger the arc rises about a quarter of the back's length above the box's top edge.

The arc drops further on the little-finger side. From the middle knuckle it falls about a fifth of the length to the edge on the thumb side and a little over a quarter to the little-finger edge, so the whole knuckle line tips down toward the little finger. The box's top edge tips the same way.

The thumb

The thumb splits off a little above halfway down. The bottom of the web between the thumb and the index finger sits just above the half line, as it does from the palm side.

With the hand spread flat, the thumb tip reaches about level with the middle knuckle, just under the top of the arc.

The drawing marks the base of the thumb as its own block: a corner just inside the outside edge, about two thirds of the way down, with a line from it running down and in toward the wrist.

The tendons

Four lines run down the back, one from each knuckle, with lighter lines beside some of them. They stand for the tendons that straighten the fingers, and here they are measured as drawn.

• They lean together. Where they fade out, they are about half as far apart as at the knuckles.
• The two outer tendons do the leaning. The index finger's leans in the most and the little finger's almost as much. The middle and ring tendons run almost straight down.
• They fade out before the wrist, between about three quarters and a little over four fifths of the way down. The middle finger's stops first and the little finger's runs furthest.

The wrist

Just below the wrist line, the little-finger edge bulges a little, and a short curved line crosses the edge there. On the thumb side, the edge curves in from the base of the thumb to the wrist.

How to draw the back of a hand, step by step

1. Draw the back's length as an upright line beside where the hand will go, as long as from the middle knuckle down to the wrist line, and mark its quarters.
2. Draw a box from the first quarter mark down to the wrist line, its top tipping down a little toward the little finger, a little narrower than the length across its top and about three quarters of that across its bottom.
3. Put the knuckle arc over the box, its top level with the top of the line, at the middle finger, dropping further to the little-finger side than to the thumb side.
4. Split off the thumb a little above the half mark, with the corner of its base about two thirds of the way down, and draw the hand's edge from the knuckles down to it.
5. Draw the little-finger edge down beside the box, then narrow the outline below it to a wrist a little below the box, about two thirds as wide as the top of the box, with a small bump on the little-finger side just below the box.
6. Draw the four tendons from the knuckles, leaning together, and stop them about three quarters to a little over four fifths of the way down. Lighter lines run beside some of them.
7. Add the fingers, the middle finger nearly as long as the back. How to draw fingers places each tip.

Common mistakes

• Putting the knuckles in a straight row. They sit on an arc, highest at the middle finger and lowest at the little finger.
• Drawing the tendons parallel. They lean together toward the wrist.
• Running the tendons all the way to the wrist. Here they fade out about three quarters to a little over four fifths of the way down.
• Drawing the wrist as wide as the hand. It is about two thirds as wide as the top of the box.
• Attaching the thumb at the knuckles. It splits off a little above halfway down.

What this does and does not cover

This is one drawing of one open right hand, redrawn in line from a render of a 3D model, seen straight on from the back. Other hands have other proportions, and how much of the tendons shows varies from hand to hand, so take the numbers as a description of this drawing and follow what your own reference shows. The box, the arc and the wrist line are construction lines the drawing marks, and the measurements move if those lines move. The back is measured from the middle knuckle, which sits lower than the webs, so its length comes out shorter than the palm's in how to draw the palm of a hand, and the middle finger longer against it. The tendons fade out rather than stop, so their ends are where the lines can still be seen. Whether each line follows the 3D model or was added in the redraw is not checked, so follow the tendons your own reference shows. This drawing has no veins. The thumb tip's height holds only for this flat, spread hand. A cupped hand and a hand turned away from straight on are not measured here; a closed hand has its own guide, how to draw a fist.

A short exercise

Hold your own hand flat, back toward you, fingers and thumb spread. Measure the back with a pencil, from your middle knuckle to the line where the hand meets the wrist, and compare it with the width across your knuckles. Make a loose fist and open it again to see where your knuckles sit on their arc, and spread your fingers to see how far down your tendons show. Then draw the back of your hand with the box, the arc and the tendons you can see.

The hand is the open hand from hands and feet, volume 1, drawn at sixteen angles, 22.5 degrees apart, with a standing foot and both of Lincoln's hands from Leonard Volk's casts. The same hand from the palm side is in how to draw the palm of a hand, at other angles in how to draw hands at different angles, and from the edge in how to draw a hand from the side. For the same way of measuring applied to the head, start with how to draw the head at any angle.