I’ve now put the new studio, or module if you want to call it that, online: Hand Reference Studio.

This one was especially fun to make, mainly because it came with quite a few challenges. It also was not the most obvious thing to build, and that is of course because of fingers. Fingers are just incredibly complex to move properly, and that is probably also one of the reasons why artists, illustrators, and maybe even photographers always want good hand references to study from. Hands are simply difficult.

Why hands are such a challenge

You probably know the issue by now that has improved a lot, but still keeps showing up in AI images: you generate a beautiful image and then the person suddenly has six fingers or some completely distorted hand. That is apparently nature’s way of making sure this topic stays as annoying as possible for all of us. Haha.

The tricky thing is that bending a finger means moving several joints, and they all have to work together. Get one of them slightly wrong and the whole hand suddenly looks weird. You might not know exactly what’s off, but you can see it straight away.

After a lot of Blender messing around on my side, and I am definitely not a top Blender expert, I managed to get to something I’m really happy with. I think I’ve built a very usable 3D hand and forearm model.

Hand Reference Studio showing a posed 3D hand and forearm against a blue background with preset poses and individual finger controls
Hand Reference Studio: pose the fingers individually and explore the hand from any angle.

From a 3D asset to a working browser studio

To be clear, I did buy the original asset itself. The difficult part was making it move properly and getting all of that to work well inside the browser. That is a whole different level. But I do think I got there.

I cannot rule out the occasional weird bug here and there. One issue that can still happen is that a finger may clip slightly through another finger, or through part of the palm, in certain positions. Those are the kinds of small issues I want to keep improving over time. So I would say it is currently about 90 to 95 percent where I want it to be, and hopefully with user feedback I can keep making it better little by little.

That said, it is absolutely usable already, and I think it looks really good.

A cupped 3D hand and forearm in Hand Reference Studio with lighting presets, shadow softness and rim light controls
A cupped hand pose with adjustable lighting and shadows.

Hand poses, lighting and useful reference angles

You can view it from all angles, move the fingers individually, and use built-in presets to quickly jump to useful poses. A few of the main features are:

  • a fully rotatable 3D hand and forearm
  • individual finger posing
  • preset hand poses
  • adjustable lighting and shadow views
  • clean browser-based interaction
  • useful reference angles for drawing, studying, or planning poses

So yes, I’m really happy with it. It was a lot of fun to make, and I hope the people who are into this kind of thing will get a lot of use and enjoyment out of it.

Help me make Hand Reference Studio better

And if you notice something that does not work properly, or if there is another option you would like to see added, whether that is lighting, shadows, or something else, definitely let me know. There is a good chance I may be able to build it in.

And if not, and you already think it works great as it is, then even better. In that case, I hope you have a lot of fun with it.

A raised 3D forearm with a bent wrist in Hand Reference Studio, showing background choices and skin, clay, faceted and silhouette views
A bent wrist pose, with different backgrounds and ways to study the form.

Hand Reference Studio is live now as part of Lumen Tool.