I need to learn some serious hand anatomy

 

Above are some examples of competently done but uninspired hands. They're drawn with hard lines and very squared-off. What I mean will become apparent in the video below. 

These are drawn by Mark Texeira. Much more fluid and graceful in terms of gesture, and they show a solid grasp of the anatomy underlying the surface. This is not surprising considering Texeira spent some time in his early days working at Continuity Comics, spearheaded by Neal Adams, and apparently got some good tips and pointers from him. I just watched an interview with Mark, where he said for his paintings he does an inital rough-in, and when that gets greenlit he'll hire models and take lots of pics for reference. I'll bet he does that for some of his comics work as well. It would explain a lot. Richard Corben, who I talked about recently, also took lots of pictures of models to work from. 

Jae Lee. Frequently his panels are little more than extreme hands and grimacing faces. Those alone can tell the story, or much of it. 

Here's how Jae Lee did hands back in his crazy 90s extreme comics style. The best comic book artists really show what they're made of if you look at the way they draw hands. As bizarre and extremely distorted as these all are, they show a deep knowledge of skeletal structure and hand gesture. Which is not the same thing as 'hand gestures'.  

I plan to go to two main sources for hand anatomy—Bridgman (always go there first) and David Finch (who definitely studied Bridgman). You can also go to Frazetta. Guess what, he studied Bridgman and used that stuff all throughout his work. The reason Bridgman is the go-to for comic book and heroic fantasy artists is because he spent a lot of time immersed in a deep study of Michelangelo's art and ferreted out some of his secrets. 

Ok, David Finch video:

Since I don't plan to be a comic book artist, I won't need to exaggerate as much as he does, but I think it's good to know about it. I always want to aim high, meaning to learn a bit more than I need. If you learn how to exaggerate farther than you need to, then you can always pull back a bit, but if you only learn realistic drawing, then how will you be able to exaggerate at all? He puts so much dynamism into everything he draws. One of the best pieces of advice in the video is to look at your own hands for ideas on poses. I think the guy who's art I posted in the first two images above could have done himself a big favor if he had checked for how people hold telephones and guns.