Sculpted arms and hands

Now its time to upgrade the arms.  Instead of simply sewinf fleece and stuffing it, here's my first attempt at sculpted arms.

First, cut out 4 pieces, roughly the shape shown.  Spray glue the edges of each piece and assemble.  Fill with poly fill or scraps to get your desired shape.

Now, I glued the forearm to the upper arm.  Another method would be to glue a piece of rope between them.  That would make a nice, flexible joint. That would work well if you were going to cover them in fleece or if the weren't going to be seen.  However, I am going to latex these and don't want the gap.

Cut out two hands.  These must be a good deal larger than you want.  I used the same hand pattern because the extra you loose in sewing that hand, works out to about what you need for folding this hand.

Spray glue the edges and fold the fingers in.

There will be a gap between the fingers, but this can also be tucked in with the glue as you see here.

Take wire (14g-18g) and bend it to be just smaller than the hand.

Slide the frame in the foam fingers

Cut a small piece of foam to fill in the gap and put it in place

 Attach hands to the arms.  This can again be done with rope, but I chose to glue it in place for the smooth seam when using the latex.


BONUS:

Here's a great way for attaching the arm rods

 Get some 1/4" - 5/16" hose.  Cut  little less than 1" of it and insert it into the bottom of the hand near the wrist and glue it in place.  I usually do this after the whole arm is done.  Now a wood, plastic or metal rod can slide in and out.  It holds well, is easy to transport, they are interchangeable and don't require visible pieces to pinch the wrist into them.

Enjoy!
Arthur Smith
www.Puppetsmith.com