Fisherman's hands

My initial plan for my characters hands was to make them out of Silicone, but after opening the container and finding the product to be a deep ox blood type red, plans changed. I decided to use Latex instead, I'd used it before on my old lady character so I knew what to expect and what needed to be done.

To start, I had to sculpt a set of hands over my armature hands, and to do this I used Plasticine - possibly my favourite thing ever! - as it's really easy to use and shape, and will come off easily later on. Once my hands were sculpted I needed to make a two part mould using plaster and clay.

Once I was happy with my sculpts I smoothed them down with talcum powder to give a better texture. I then embedded them about halfway into a slab of clay which I then covered all over the top with Vaseline (this is so the mould comes apart when dry). I added chunks of clay in two corners so that the mould fits together much cleaner when finished. 

I then made a little container for the slab to fit all snug in and glued it up nice and tight using a glue gun.

Plaster was then mixed up good and proper and gently poured over the mould. Banging the table gets rid of any unwanted air bubbles and chunks of clay stop any leakage.

When the top half of the mould was dry it was time to make the second half - hence two part mould! The box is taken off and the clay section removed, the mould is then flipped and the box put back in place. Another layer of plaster is then poured on top, and once dry there you have your two part mould all ready to use!

To make the actual hands acrylic paint is mixed with the Latex and painted on in layers before the armature is put in place and the mould smooshed back together. Then once everything is dry (I usually give it a day to dry completely) I was left with a pair of hands ready to use, once the Latex is trimmed of course.

Unfortunately, my mould broke after being used but I still needed it to make another set of spare  hands so a quick repair job using superglue was in order before I could make the second set. Luckily, everything turned out pretty well - the only problem being that the k&s discoloured the Latex in some areas - I'm very pleased with how it all came out though.

Thanks for taking a look! I'll be using Latex and moulds for other parts of my build so will update with pictures and what-not when they're done, I hope you enjoyed my little post!