Sunday Mailbag: Getting Handsy?

Q: When not dictated by the script, how do you decide the positioning/gestures of hands? As comics are a visual medium, I’d assume static hands with no play make it a dull panel, but I would also assume too many wacky gestures would distract from the tone. Needless to say, when the focus of a panel is some dialogue without action, where do you draw the line?

A: Actually the position/gestures of hands are almost always dictated by the script. Not directly, where the script says “have the speaker waving hands frantically”, but by the dialogue and the emotion the character is supposed to be conveying. They are a part of the ‘acting’ the script is telling me a character is supposed to be doing in any given panel or illustration.

Hands are an extremely descriptive element of any human. They are probably the third most used tool of communication we have right behind our mouths and eyes. Hand gestures can indicate almost any emotion from sympathy to warmth to anger to nervousness to whatever. Pairing a facial expression with some form of hand gesture is a powerful visual for conveying the emotion of a character.

I use hand gestures to focus or reinforce the emotion of a speaking character. I sometimes use them for humorous effect by exaggerating a gesture or using a certain “cartoon” type of gesture for a given moment. For example, if a character is having an idea, holding their hand up palm forward with their index finger pointed straight up is a “EUREKA!” cartoonish movement, and coupled with an appropriate facial expression makes for a funny image. It’s funnier with the hand gesture.

Otherwise I draw hands moving, emoting, and gesturing because hands are very seldom completely static. They go hand in hand (uh…) with body language in making figures seem interesting and engaging. Just drawing someone standing straight with their hands at their sides is not just boring, it’s unnatural. Even when inactive people lean, slouch, cock their heads a bit, cross their arms, etc.

As far as overdoing it, I don’t draw every figure with elaborate hand gestures all the time. I guess I just decide as I’m roughing out a page if a panel needs some hand gestures or not. Sometimes they are quite subtle. Often the character I’m drawing does certain things with their hands or has a certain presence where the hands become an important element. If a character is manic and high energy, I’ll convey that with over-the-top hand gestures and body language as well as facial expressions. Someone who is sedate and laid back will have very loy key and relaxed hands. It’s all part of capturing the persona of the character being drawn.

A few years ago I drew up these pages of different hand gestures as part of a project. These are just some samples of different hand gestures I will often use:

Thanks to Bradford Smith for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about  cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!