Modeling a Human Hand

The human hand is challenging to represent, whether the medium be a 3D modeling program, traditional pencil and paint, or clay. I personally modeled a human hand for my VIST 305 course, and will discuss the steps I took in approaching this geometry.

It is important in this process to assign which part of the hand goes in which coordinate direction. My z-axis would represent the depth of the hand, my x-axis the width, and my y-axis the height. I want my fingers to point in the positive y-direction, and my palm to face the positive z-direction.

The starting object is a cubic primitive, which can be extruded three times–this will result in four vertical devisions, which will ultimately become our four fingers. The first step in separating the fingers is to bevel the edges at the top. Then, subdivide the block horizontally, making sure to situate a division at the vertices of the beveled triangles, and twice more. The number of subdivisions is up to the modeler, however, I am choosing less for now to be as efficient as possible. There can always be more subdivisions as we progress through the modeling process. 

The rest of the process of modeling a hand consists of geometric extrusions, subdivisions, and the translation of vertices. To accurately render the curvature of the palm, I would consider its topology–moving vertices and subdividing as needed. I would reference my own hand and images of the hand.

The fingers are detailed and involve more subdivisions. They must first be extruded, then subdivided vertically at least once to attain roundness, then horizontally at least six times. The horizontal subdivisions are important for modeling the joints. Many modelers choose to model a single finger, and then duplicate it three times, adjusting size and shape accordingly. I would personally choose this method, but would be careful to situate the joints in their proper height hierarchy, and to take care to model natural imperfections of the human hand. We have to make sure that the modeled hand doesn’t appear to be a robot glove. Another consideration for the fingers is to delete any unnecessary faces–specifically, the ones that lie where the fingers will weld with the hand.

The thumb is fairly difficult to model. First, it requires that a large face on the side of the palm be rotated to the proper angle. The face should rotate towards the positive z-axis or away from the center of the palm. Then, the face is extruded and subsequently subdivided to model the details. Once extruded, the thumb rotates slightly around its single joint. 

The description of the process of modeling the human hand using a 3D software program could occupy pages and pages. Essentially, it involves a cubic primitive, vertical and horizontal subdivisions, five extrusions, and the translation and rotation of vertices. 

References: Modeling of Joan of Arc by Michel Roger