Paint hands that tell a story

1 I lay down quick line art to start depicting the hand. For this article I want my character’s hand to look very soft, almost floating in the air. I choose a pastel-based colour scheme: a pale blue mixed with a tender beige for the hand. I use a Soft brush to create the base, ensuring that there’s some colour variation, ready for the skin texture.

2 Now I start to further define the hand, slowly developing the shape of the fingers and the palm. The hand must look delicate and so the fingers need to be long with no hard lines. To save time I don’t try to create perfectly detailed hands. The key anatomy signposts such as nails or wrinkles can be suggested by simple touches of light.

3 I add more details, and work on the skin texture with the same Soft brush. I soften the light because I don’t want it to become too strong and ruin the emotion I want to convey. I’ll also leave the hand’s outline blurred to achieve an even more tender feeling to the whole element. Clean outlines suit hands that are conveying a tense attitude.