Claudia Herbst
Associate Professor
Pratt Institute
Department of Digital Arts



Modeling a Hand Using Polygons: Part I


Create a polyCube (figure1)

Figure 1




Add four divisions, one for each finger, the thumb comes later (figure 2)

Figure 2




Under Edit Mesh, make sure Keep Faces Together is toggled Off (figure 3).

Figure 3




Extrude several times to create the fingers; scale each extrusion slightly as you go along to create
the space between the fingers (figure 4).

Figure 4




Now we will extrude the palm of the hand. First, under Edit Mesh, make sure Keep Faces Together
is toggled On (figure 5).

Figure 5




Next, select the faces where the palm of the hand will be (figure 6); extrude three times (figure 7).

Figure 6





Figure 7




Now the base of the thumb -- this part will require some work. Select the bottom face, where the
fleshy part of the thumb would protrude. Scale it slightly, rotate it into the direction the thumb grows,
and move it out slightly (figure 8).

Figure 8




Extrude and rotate into the direction the thumb grows (figure 9).

Figure 9




By extruding, rotating and moving, you should achieve something like what is depicted in figure 10.
As you can probably tell, creating the base of the thumb won't look anatomically correct right away.

Figure 10




To get a sense for where the base of the thumb should be, move some vertices on the bottom of the palm of
the hand to account for the fleshy area of that part of the hand (figure 11).

Figure 11




When moving the base of the thumb and thumb into position, you will likely find that it will be helpful to merge
points in the area between the thumb and the palm of the hand (figure 12, red arrow). To do so, select two vertices,
go to Edit Mesh, Merge. Make sure to look at it from the top and the bottom when you do this.
Figure 12




Keep looking at the emerging shape from all angles (figure 13).

Figure 13




A little more tweaking: round the side of the hand and extrude one more time where
the wrist would be (figure 14).

Figure 14


Getting there... try smoothing your hand to see how the shape is coming along. Of course, we need to work
some more on the overall proportions and dedicate some time to the knuckles and fingernails.