Silicon Hands

The hands were made from a clear silicon, colour was added through the use of oil paints. A layer of silicon was first painted into the mould, so that any air bubbles that might have occur would not be seen on the surface. The Miro's hands are used as an example to show this:

Thread was then wrapped around the fingers of my hand armatures and kept in place with the tiniest blob of super glue. Once again The Miro's hands are used as an example of how this was done:

The hand armatures were then placed into the mould and positioned into the right place. The other side of the mould was placed on top before any other silicon was added, to make sure that the armature would fit.

Silicon was then added to both sides of the mould and both sides were sandwiched together.

Once the silicon had dried the mould was taken apart and the hands were revealed.

Unfortunately Theodor's hands mould snapped into three parts. Luckily I managed to make three pairs of hands before this happened!

Theodor's Hands:

The Miro's Hands:

Photos of the hands with extra silicon removed and seem lines tidied will be blogged with the final shoes in a later post.

Theodor Bulking and Padding

Theodor's chest and crotch were bulked out using balsa wood, making sure the rigs are accessible. The photo's show the front, back, left and right of the puppet in that order.

The middle section between these two piece of balsa wood was then padded out with styrofoam. The photo's show the front, back, left and right of the puppet in that order.

 

Theodor's neck was sculpted from plasticine with a piece of K&S running through the middle, a cast was then made of this neck. Once the plaster had hardened a layer of silicon was painted into the mould. 

When this layer of silicon was dry Theodor's armature was slotted into place, using the K&S slot in the mould as a guide. Masking tape was used to stop the armature falling to far into the mould, while also reinforcing it in place.

The neck once it had been removed from the mould

The legs and arms were padded out using a thin sheet of foam I'd acquired from packaging.

The Miro's Leg's and Arm

I sculpted the legs and arms out of super sculpey, the image below shows the arm sculpt (forgot to take a picture of the leg sculpt!). One arm and one leg was cast and both arms and legs were then taken from the one mould.

 To make the plaster mould A foam board box was built up around the sculpts.

I didn't mix enough plaster for the leg mould so I had to score the top with a craft knife and add more plaster once the first batch of plaster had slightly hardened.

The sculpt was then removed from the mould, and the mould was cleaned. A layer of silicone was  painted into the mould and the armature was secured in place using the K&S slot. Masking tape was used on the leg mould to help keep it centred. While a piece of plasticine was placed underneath the mould to stop the armature from moving too far down.

Once the layer of silicon that had been painted in had dried, silicon was poured into the mould filling it to the brim. due to the cone like shape of the legs and arms with a little force they popped out.

The legs fresh from the mould:

The arms fresh from the mould:

Hand Moulds

The Hand moulds were created similar to my previous efforts on my last film. The only different was that this time was a single piece of aluminium wire was used, running through out the hands. This was to reduce tension found when twisting wire. Later wrists were supported with copper wire and then glued into pieces of K&S to make them detachable.

Theodor's Hands:

The Miro's Hands:

The hand sculpts were made from Super Sculpey Firm photos for this process can be found below.

Theodor's Hands:

The Miro's Hands:

The hands were then laid up in plasticine ( I did attempt to use terracotta clay, but found the sculpts got dirty so I returned to a material I was more comfortable with). Foam board boxes were then built up around the laid up hands and plaster was poured over the top.

Theodor's Hands:

The Miro's Hand's:

Once the first half had of the mould had been cleaned, pieces of plasticine were added around the hands to reduce the seem line. the first half was then returned to the foam board boxed and and brushed with a thin layer of vaseline.

Theodor's Hand's:

The Miro's Hands:

 

The silicon hands will be blogged in a later post.