A Show Of Hands: Crossing The Threshold Of A Drunken Telegraph Video

Every successful drawing begins with a “thumbnail sketch“. This is where I work out the basic forms, values and composition. I ended up flipping the orientation.

This hand is in a pencil rough. I then trace over the image with ink, refinement!

In looking back over my old hand drawings for this post, I realized that prior to 2003, my hands were hidden or clenched in a fist. This was the level of hand construction typical of the way I drew hands “Pre-Whaletown”.

I began work on a still-as-yet-unfinished graphic novel called “Whaletown” in 2003. This forced me to face my inadequacies of my hand-drawings. I bought a fantastic book, “Hogarth’s Dynamic Hands”.

I began to use a rough sketch to capture the gesture and energy.

I use the rough sketch to refine the forms…

Then I build the hand using simple shapes to construct the hand.

This technique can be applied to any hand position. This was for a poster I was working on.

Here is a hand I drew for a medical diagram we use in our Vascular surgery department.

This is a hand I was proud of. This is the ink work for a Earthling comic panel. I often use my own hands as models, because, well, they are always around!

Here is the Earthling panel fully colored and illustrated.

Here’s my sketchbook page of all my work-ups for the Drunken Telegraph teaser video.

I found a neat monotone under color while scanning the drawings that really helped unify this set of images. I offset that color layer a bit, creating a print-like process. Embrace those happy accidents!

I inked this series primarily with a brush. I like the moody contrasts that technique creates.

I shave almost every day, so I figured I could draw this, but I still ended up using my wife’s hand for the model!

I couldn’t get this pose right, so I let Megan show me. She grew up with a swimming pool in her back yard. But I used my memories of youth for the feeling and tone of the skinny-dipping!

This is a very rough thumbnail. Megan wanted the car in the background, so that also took some figuring-out.

The pencil rough for the purse image. I used my own hand awkwardly clutching a backpack for the model. Megan shopped for the right purse to copy.

My favorite drawing of the set. I love the lines on the car and the nearly op-art way the eyes want to make it 3-D. Pink and Green is a great combo, by the way.