Hands are as expressive a part of the body as the face. However, like the face, they are complicated and difficult to get looking accurate. Here are some basic ways to position your hands and to keep them in proportion.

When you are sketching in your figure, you do not have to worry about all of the detail in the hand and fingers right away. Break down the hand into simple shapes and lay in your drawing. Once you have everything positioned to suit your fancy you can begin creating the hand.

Fingers branch out in a radius from the wrist. By spacing 4 lines evenly, you can figure out where the fingers will basically pop out of the palm.

I use my own hand for refrence a lot. As you can see, the shapes are very general, but by looking at my own hand and by using loose basic shapes, my drawing is coming together so you can recognize a fist.

Here's another quicky that I did with my hand as a refrence. Please note that your thumb only has 2 places where it can bend, while your fingers have 3 (these are counting the palm connection).

Once you have your sketch drawn in, you can finish your hands by adding shading. Look at your own hand and you'll notice wrinkles, shadows, nails, and other fine details that you can fill in. Cartoons do not need hands that look this detailed, but if you want to go for realism, then every detail helps!