How to Draw a Cartoon Hand Wave
- 1). Draw the outline of a hand on your character. The best way to do this is to either draw the palm of the hand with the thumb and fingers facing forward, or to draw the thumb resting against the palm and the four fingers slightly curled forward. These are two ideal positions for adding the elements that indicate movement.
- 2). Draw a lighter version of the hand to the left and right of the initial hand you drew if you want a side-to-side wave. The light versions should be just dark enough to show the general outline of the hand, but not so dark that it appears to be more than one hand in the image. For an up and down wave, the lighter hand elements should be drawn above and below the hand.
- 3). Smudge the lighter hand outline to take away the definite hard lines. This will give them a blurry appearance, and thus create the illusion the hand is moving either up and down, or side to side.