how the hell do I draw a arm

[knotty terrace]

making this for a friend and it’s about 60 percent done, but the hand and the arm are giving me SO MUCH TROUBLE like seriously
help please this the second time im drawing more anime like hence the anime character (jushiro from bleach) and this a bday present so i gotta do my best yknow?

[hearty cargo]

Hey so there's two ways i can see you doing this. Having the arm flat towards us or pushing away towards us. Its great actually that you drew the hand first.
When laying out the arm, I like to do a triangle, it helps with perspective. For example I'll put down both examples of the arm flat against us and pushing away to us.

Just a quick example. If you have any questions feel free to let me know 🙂

[knotty terrace]

thank you!!! I was trying to go for the second way, the pushing away one but it didn’t seem to work whatsoever, I’ll try both of these and hopefully update on which I like better!

[hearty cargo]

Awesome! Def let us know. 😄

[dull pelican]

How did you draw and render the hand without the arm?

[knotty terrace]

because I did have an arm! I just erased it cause I hated it and it didn’t work how I wanted it to, also there is supposed to be flowers covering the left corner anyways 😭

I think this arm is larger that it should be and discolored, and since I couldn’t find a way to fix it without changing it completely, I just deleted that layer 🙁

[hearty cargo]

elbow looked a little too pointy, if you look at your own elbow its more rounded like how I overpainted yours. Kind of changed the squish between elbow and bicep to communicate form better in terms of perspective.

Fixed sleeve.

Just some minor corrections honestly, otherwise it looks awesome.

[chrome bobcat]

main reason why i think you're finding it so hard to pose the arm is cuz you're not thinking about forshortening..

the way the body is angled already implies that the arm would extend more to the back, so you could try more exaggerated foreshortening, and make the hand bigger in general.

i did 2 paintovers to show what i mean: 1 with the forced arm pose and the foreshortened one, see what you like more ig

the action and tension of the head/shoulders dont match the calm, 90 deg angle of the arm thats why it looks more weird in comparison

but then again it also depends on what you want to express with your piece

[hearty cargo]

☝️

[knotty terrace]

thank you everyone!!! I’ll make sure to take these into consideration!!!

[knotty terrace]

got it! Since the character I’m drawing is muscular, I was trying to make his arm larger than mine, but didn’t consider the shape of the shoulders enough to make it fit properly 😭😭😭

[knotty terrace]

thank you on the help seriously u was debating on making the hand bigger but couldn’t figure out how I could do it 😭 thank you sm!!!

man forshortening is hard looks like I gotta study a lot more

[chrome bobcat]

a hand spread out is about the size of the face, bigger for masc, smaller for fem (i use this tip too much)

[knotty terrace]

well damn looks like I got small hands 💔

[green pumice]

I second this. The hand's angle also suggests the arm would extend back, so having it be like in the first image doesn't make much sense

But I do think the hand is too big in niche's example, because extended it would be a lot bigger than the face, so it looks like the hand is closer to the viewer than the head and I'm pretty sure the point is to have the hand and head aligned when seen from the front

[green pumice]

I don't think I agree with this fix. Elbows are wider at the bottom and pointy from this angle

[dawn ivy]

The arm is pointed away from the camera, so you won't see the full tip of the elbow like that.

See how the folds of the sleeve are curving and overlapping each other; the clothes would look very different if the arm was turned forward.

[green pumice]

My reference was based on the pose I think they were going for with their fix. Still, even when it's bent back, the elbow area won't curve inwards like that, it will look a lot straighter. Either that or something else just looks off about it's shape. Maybe it's just that it doesn't make sense with any of the other angles

[dawn ivy]

Although it's the same pose, it's in a different perspective, so it doesn't show the foreshortening of the arm. These may help to demonstrate what we're talking about. (refs are from: gymnastic bodies & sophie turner)

[green pumice]

Seeing this images makes me realize is probably not the elbow that looks weird, it's the curve in the arm that's too exaggerated. Either way it doesn't matter much why that arm looks off, the fix niche did is the one OP was going for with the hand placement

[dawn ivy]

It looks off because the wrist & hand are too small. The curve is fine, it's what you get by the upper arm being bent forward more (couldn't find a perfect 1:1 ref, so these just have the upper arm straight up).

Both Niche & Desh's the work for the hand placement, yeah. Niche's second one implies the wrist is bent, which gives it some good energy.

[green pumice]

The arm's curve looks odd regardless of the hand. Arms are just not shaped like that no matter how you angle them. When bent they get curvier around the joint because the muscle is being pushed together with the biceps, but it doesn't become banana shaped. I like Niche's approach better but if OP chooses Desh's approach, the arm shape needs to be worked on

[dawn ivy]

I can explain how making the hand larger would affect the curve or provide a bunch of refs showing how it looks IRL, but I don't think it's going to change your mind anyway. There's no point in us arguing about it further

The body creates all kind of weird shapes when foreshortened, and that's something you'll notice more of with time.

Have a great day