Full clay turnaround here:
http://skasse.deviantart.com/art/Chunli-Clay-491848167
Made a hand for a project at work. First real hand “study” I’ve done so I’m happy with the result on this one. Helps to have two of em connected to your body!
Modelled from a zsphere, retopped in Maya. Zbro Skin shader.
Now rig and texture in Maya.
Hello Scott!
Quite a nice start you’ve got there. There’s a few things that are bothering me though:
The biggest eye-sore in my opinion is the horizontal wrinkle in your palm. I made you a little sketch to show what I think should be improved wrinkle-wise.
Also, consider doing some zig-zagging / crow’s feet where your wrinkles end, instead of a straight line coming to a dead end. At least at the wrinkles on the flank of the hand.
Consider angling all fingers (middle and distal phalanges) towards the middle finger. I think I learned this from Scott Eaton (I highly recommend his anatomy courses).
Your fingertips need some more love, I think. In your front view they taper a bit too much for my taste. Try making them pretty much the same width all throughout, rounding off at the top. However, this might not be necessary once you’ve improved on your proportions.
Here are the kind of proportions I try to work according to:
The measurement in red is your base unit; the length of the first phalanx. The measurement in magenta on the right side is where your fingers should start off on the palm side, in other words - about half a unit above the first knuckle. This should divide the fingers’ segments on the palmar side into thirds, roughly.
The turquoise X measurements on either side of the midpoint should be of equal length. I don’t know if my little sketch is clear enough, let me know if there’s a colour that boggles you.
Lastly, your thumb should get some more attention. One of the things that grab my attention the most is the plane change in the area between the thumb and index finger. It looks too sharp for my taste. Another thing is the lower knuckle; it might be a bit too pronounced, it would look alright if the thumb was bent forward, but when it’s in the position it is now you might want to smooth it out a bit.
Take a look at your wrist. The flexor tendons need to be redone (there’s usually only one clearly visible when the hand is not flexing, and it shouldn’t be a vertical line; tilt it a bit), look for references.
I hope you found some of this helpful 
Take it with a grain of salt; I am by no means an expert.
Good luck!
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AndskiMan,
Thank you so much for the reply! I appreciate your time.
I agree with everything you said, and have a couple questions, but first things first. Your biggest eye-sore gave me a laugh because that is how the wrinkle is on my left hand, but not my right. I wonder how common a single crease is…
What do you mean by angling all the fingers towards the middle one?
Which area does the plane change look too sharp? Top between the first joints of the index and thumb, or along the profile?
Lastly, the flexor tendons. I wonder how common this is also, because my right hand has two flexors visible at all times and 3 very pronounced if I flex my forearm. 1 and 2 flexed on my left wrist though. I’m glad you pointed them out though, because it made me realized that they are much too thick regardless.
Thanks again!
Hi, Scott!
I must say, I haven’t seen a palm crease like yours before. But then again it’s not like I’ve compared lots of hands so I can’t really say
if it’s rare or not, I’m assuming it is though. I feel kind of bad now, calling it an eye-sore 
I hope your hand didn’t get too offended.
Very intriguing, however. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I’d appreciate if you could take 2 pics of how the crease deforms when you
articulate your fingers. One where your hand is relaxed, and one similar to this but with a clear view of the crease:
As you might have noticed, the quality of my criticism deteriorated towards the end of my last post, since my lunch break was coming to
an end at that moment. I was planning on doodling a bit more, but instead I had to try to use my words. Had there not been a lack of time
I’d try to find a better word than “angling” (and maybe even google that and confirm that it is in fact a term related to fishing).
I’ve got some time now however, as I am waiting for an animation to render out.
This is what I meant. Think of the middle finger as being straight (although it’s most likely not, all of the fingers are probably crooked in some way)
and the rest of the fingers want to bend towards it. If you look at the way your index finger is bending now, you might see it’s bending in the opposite direction.
Be careful not to overdo the bends though, subtlety is key here.
As for the thumb, the green area is what I think had too sharp of a plane change. I wish I could tell you exactly what’s wrong, but I must admit that
the complexity of that area is quite perplexing to me. All I can say is; investigate*. And while you’re doing that, have a look at how the tendons
of the thumb (blue) route their way to their insertions. Once you’ve done that, I think you might improve in the red area since most of the tendons lie there.
I feel I must apologize for my assumption of one clearly visible tendon. It’s what I could confirm just looking at my own wrists, but it’s most likely highly individual.
What you mentioned about your tendons being different on either wrist is not very uncommon as I understand it. Apparently palmaris longus can be missing on
some people, and even exist on one arm and not the other. That’s the one that is supervisible on my wrists.
Green: I’m guessing that it might be the palmaris longus you’ve tried to indicate here, do note the question marks however. If it is, it needs to lie a bit obliquely
since its origin is the medial epicondyle of the humerus. Again, investigate*.
Blue: I’m guessing that the surface form you’re seeing here is from the flexor digitorum. Investigate*.
Red: I am quite certain that’s the FCU, but don’t take my word for it.
*So how to go about investigating? I am quite curious of how you’ve been learning your anatomy thus far, since I can see you have a decent understanding
for many areas of the body (judging by your halloween entry). I’ve written a bit about what helped me advance:
A software that I am pretty keen on recommending to people is Visible Body Muscle Premium. It costs about the same as an anatomy book, only it’s way more interactive.
If you do get it, find your way to Actions, Forearm and Hand, Wrist flexion and you’ll see quite an informative animation that might help you make better sense of the
superficial wrist tendons.
I have however noticed some muscles that might not look quite as they do in real life, so don’t take it as gospel (but that pretty much goes for everything, right?).
But don’t settle with just that as a method of learning, get your hands on as much different learning material as possible. A book that I’d recommend is Eliot Goldfinger’s
Human Anatomy for Artists.
As I stated in my previous post, I highly recommend Scott Eaton’s anatomy courses. It might a bit pricey compared to an anatomy book, but if you intend to be working
professionally with anatomy it will be well worth it, trust you me. You’ll learn all of the superficial muscles - their functions, origins and insertions and how they
produce surface form. He has a lot experience with life referencing and often bring up anatomical anomalies and such. I feel that out of all the things I could recommend,
his courses are the best.
Well, my render’s done. Toodles!
EDIT: I forgot; if you don’t own one already, get yourself a system camera. Get a remote shutter releaser for the camera, and a cable so that you can hook
it up to a TV, enabling you to easily try out poses and get decent photo references of whatever it is you need to study. Buy 3 or more lamps and photograph with
different combinations of light sources and contrast.
Thanks again for the great write up. I’m Applying towards my next project that i’m currently working on.
Here’s a few pictures I took of my Hands that you asked for. Took them with my phone and adjusted in PS.
Hey Scott, thanks a lot for the pics!
If you’re still going with a single crease on your study, I think you ought to tilt it a little, make it a bit less perfectly horizontal.
Looking forward to seeing the revised version!
Something from the last couple days while taking a break from another project I’ve been working on. Original concept by JollyJack on deviantArt.
Rendered in Maya with MentalRay.
Very nice lady!
Is the thick thumb intentional?
This makes me want to be a better person, sooo good. Great character design
WoooW! i really love those characters. very nice work!
@Jake Rupert: Thank you and nope 
I would love to chalk it up to the silhouette, perspective, and the bend of the thumb, but I think it probably is just too thick and I missed it.
@blckgold and Spooki: haha, thanks for the compliment. I wish I could take full credit for character designs but the linked artists absolutely deserve their recognition.
Loving the curves of the pose… great job bringing the concept to life!
Here are some SUPER rough test poses of my current sculpt.
I didn’t edit skin weights or anything, just bound the rig and started posing, so there is some funkyness, but like I said - rough, just to see which pose I’d like to stick with.
I’m digging the third pose the most, but still have some work to do in order to get the silhouette and flow in good shape.
The second one is too cute I think… but it wouldn’t require a whole lot of fixing after posing, so I might do it in addition to the primary one?
I rigged her in Maya using transposeMaster… I love this “new to me” workflow I had the LightRig all set up from my last post so figured why not.
awesome character. I really dig the pose for the middle row.
great feel!
Duncan, thanks for the compliment. Been a fan of yours for a quite a while, so it was nice to see a compliment from you.
Thank you also, Gedn.
Haven’t had a whole lot of time to work on this character since my last post. I have a highres version of her boots, but I’m still not satisfied with them. These wrinkles are defeating me, ha. I’m going to go back once more, but after that, time to move on. I like the wrinkle pattern as they’re super thin leather, but the folds themselves are too blocky or square profiled…
I started working on a fox to add to the scene yesterday afternoon. I think this might actually be the first animal I’ve ever sculpted, so it was a fun start. Definitely need to study some anatomy and get the pose worked out because I like where it’s going. The silhouette needs to be changed a bit more around the skull as well since the jawline is pretty much tangent with the tail.
Lastly, I sculpted this owl skull this morning for work. Afterward, I had the time to paint and render it and thought I’d share.
I spent a couple hours sketching this guy out while watching some AGDQ on youtube. I’m really struggling with sculpting the fur on the fox for my witch doctor chick - I’ve been really busy at work too and I usually work on her in my downtown, so thats a better excuse I guess… So it was fun to sculpt something a little different. I dont think I’ve ever taken a male body to this level before, which is kind of sad since it really isn’t all that refined.
Its supposed to be an orc… and after a good nights sleep the face isn’t orc-ish at all. I need to flesh out some other areas like the forearms and hands, but then get straight into giving him some armor,weapons,accessories and stuff.
Anyway, rendered with Hazardous’ skin material.
Had a chance to get back to this and reworked the fox and pose a bit. The pose feels very sensitive to the correct perspective, which tells me theres something wrong with it, so I’ll have to give it some time and figure out the right balance. It might be the lack of look direction and also the feet/front legs are too similar in the front pose.
