How to Draw a Tumblr Thing How to Draw a Hand Reaching Out Easy

Hello your art is amazing so are your tutorials so i wanted to ask(if you still do tutorials) can you do one on holding weapons like knives and guns. Thanks you magnificent person.

Someone else asked me a few months ago and I never got around to it… so let's see what I can finally do for you.

Warning: reaaaaally long. Probably a lot of unnecessary writing. Inquire below if you dare!

Guns

The first thing I guess is to not be afraid of using references! I don't know jack about guns so I rely heavily on references. If you're lucky you can find one in the right perspective or being held in the right position, but it is always good to know the basics so you have more flexibility.

Let's deconstruct. The basic premise of a gun is a sealed tube to focus a blast in one direction. Then you need a body to hold the tube, and a handle with a trigger to hold the body. Finally you need a hole to load the ammo, and a pin to hit the bullet so it fires. For aiming, sights and scopes are optional.

I think hunting rifles didn't always used to have sights, because hunting rabbits and deer you don't always have enough time to focus when aiming. For that reason, something imprecise like a shotgun can often be found without sights. Even sniper rifles! But the definition of a sniper rifle means it must have a scope.

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Pistols

Ok so first is a generic pistol to get familiar with the basic shape. If you want a particular model of gun, go find a reference. I don't draw guns that often in general so I haven't memorized any fine details. I draw this basic shape as a placeholder, then fill in the fine details when I have decided on the exact pistol I'm going to use. If I'm drawing a character from a distance, I can just leave the placeholder there because the fine details aren't visible anyway.

Note how the angle of the grip is obtuse compared to the barrel. The exact angle will vary with the type of gun, but it isn't the 90-degree angle you see in stick figure doodles!

What a difference!! Yeah, not that different, but now you know.

When I draw characters holding guns, I start out with a crappy figure like those to plan out the body positions.

Now, holding a pistol! As you can imagine, the trigger finger is going to be further extended than the other three. From this view, we only see the tip of it, while we see a bit more than one full segment of each of the other fingers. Divide out the area of the grip to fit the three fingers comfortably. Note how the pinky finger is shorter and we see less of it than the other ones.

The thumb can be in different positions: more extended or more clenched in a fist, whatever you feel like drawing, I guess? I imagine the more extended thumb is a bit more comfortable, but if your character is more angry than calm, then go for a fist! Even when holding weapons, hands are still expressive tools, so use them to your advantage!

Here's a back view. The hand looks more clenched if the tendons are visible on the back of the hand (orange). The tendons stretch from the knuckles and join each other at the back of the wrist (like wires). The thumb has a tendon too! The bottom edge of the palm rounds out to reach the wrist where it squishes against the grip.

Stances

You probably won't really care, but I thought it was interesting the little bit I learned about shooting stances.

 So the Isosceles stance (purple) features locked elbows, absorbs the shock of recoil evenly through the skeleton, and is usually taught in police academy. The Weaver stance (red) features a mostly straight dominant arm, a bent support arm, and absorbs the recoil more with muscular tension. The stance we usually see in cop dramas and stuff (blue) has more bent arms than either of the other two, which is a little more stressful to the user, but fits more nicely in camera frame.

The army teaches point shooting, which does not employ a stance but rather relies on instinct to shoot a target quickly and accurately without the use of sights.

Perspective

To draw a gun pointing at the viewer, start with a simple fist that points out of the page. You may notice that the palm has sort of a sideways "m" shape coming out from the thumb. The palm gets squished together when the thumb is more towards the center of the hand (in a fist) rather than the more relaxed/extended position I told you about earlier.

Next you add the trigger finger. Yes it looks like 5 fingers but just ignore the ghostly index finger as you add in the grip and the trigger guard.

The barrel and body are basically a rectangular prism that extends from the top of the grip. You can place a vanishing point where the character's eyes are, and draw the perspective lines back to this point to align them all properly.

The arm shapes go back in overlapping segments: forearm, bicep, shoulder, torso… In this drawing I made Seb's head face upwards but you can do whatever you require as long as it makes sense where his eyes are pointing.

Here's a still frame where you can see the details of the gun. I based this on a Desert Eagle and obviously used plenty of references in the link because I do not know anything so yeah there you go. Things to keep in mind are to give the sharp edges of the structure (outermost edges, corners, trigger, barrel) darker and thicker outlines, while the details (screws, minor edges, texture) are given lighter and finer lines. Thick outlines at the point nearest to the camera make the perspective stronger, especially in an image like this.

See what I mean? Although sometimes you want to focus on the character rather than the gun, so that will affect your decision.

Rifles

Rifles are held with the butt against the shoulder of the dominant arm (the ball seen in the beginning of the gif). The back is bent over to peer through the lens while preparing for recoil. The support arm is more straightened out than the dominant arm, and holds the barrel of the gun. Machine guns/assault rifles are held in a similar way. Sniper rifles have the signature telescopic lens on top, and may or may not have the stand.

This particular rifle is a mix of whatever was on the first google results page for "sniper rifle". It's just the common general shape with some improvised lines thrown in because it doesn't really matter what the model is right now, does it?

Snipers with the stand can also steady the rifle closer to the butt with their support hand, or may lie down instead of crouching. You may remember an image similar to this from an older post… The gun was based loosely on an AR-15 with a silencer. When aiming, your first instinct may be to draw the eyes focused close, at the scope itself, rather than looking through it. Be sure to fix the eyes on a distant object, further apart.

To get some more practice drawing guns, check out the Matrix lobby scene, my favourite action movie scene of all time probably.

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Knives

Reverse Grip

Not sure what to say about knives… I know even less about knives than I do guns. This is a grip you see a lot in anime probably, called the reverse grip edge out, which is cool looking but isn't as good for fighting as most of the forward grips. It looks like it's better for slicing/slashing rather than stabbing. Typically knives are used for stabbing, and the most effective way is the obvious one, plunging the knife straight down or forward (boring!).

Forward Grip

Here is the regular grip, from above, with the knife pointing sort of toward the camera. On knives with different hilts/guards, you can also rotate the hand around the handle, putting the thumb on the spine or the flat side of the blade.

When you draw the blade from this view, the slight curve becomes more exaggerated because of foreshortening. The same rule also applies to longer blades like swords.

Playing with a pocketknife

The last thing I have for you is a folding pocketknife. Again not sure what I can say to help you draw one, but it has a nice curve from the butt of the handle all the way to the tip of the point, and a hinge right where the blade meets the handle. Also, differently from other knives, the pocketknife has a flatter handle, into which the blade folds. Keep that in mind when drawing or shading!

Holding it more delicately than the previous two grips, his hand is not a fist. Rather, the thumb is on the opposite side of the handle from the fingers, and the hand is making a lot less contact with the handle.

That's all I have for you! I hope that helps, and if it doesn't, you can always mimic the poses in a mirror or camera and copy from that. Happy drawing! Best of luck!

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Source: https://hippano.tumblr.com/post/116837577371/hello-your-art-is-amazing-so-are-your-tutorials-so

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