Final Project - Hand Armatures

Mk I

These were the first hand armatures I created for the narrator's old man puppet, as he is bedridden, most of his movements will be somewhat limited to his hands and face, and the hands I created for the bedridden farmer in the BAA sting did not have armatures, as a result, the fingers couldn't bend very well and broke off a lot.
These armatures were ridiculously awful, I don't know what the hell I was thinking, the wire poked through the plasticine, and there was no defined jointed bend in the fingers, so they just sort of smoothly curved inward, the fingers were also too small, basically, everything I could've done wrong, I did. I'm an idiot, blah blah blah, sod that, we're supposed to learn from our mistakes, so I just tried again...

Mk II

  These were bigger, better and with less stabby potential, but there were still some issues that I was at the time unable to fix, the wire began to untwist itself when bent, due to the capped fingers, which were necessary to prevent the wire poking through the plasticine. I knew that i could fix this problem by putting heat shrink around the fingers, but I couldn't do that before capping them, as the clay had to be baked, which would destroy the heat shrink, and I couldn't do it after, as the heat shrink wouldn't fit over the caps.
I also wanted to try segmenting the fingers, giving them defined joints, but I find Fimo too soft to do very small fiddly bits, so I decided to try Milliput...

Mk III

These definitely tick all the boxes, the Milliput did the job perfectly, as Milliput, unlike Fimo, air dries over the course of several hours, so no heat is required, and you can continue to shape it even as it begins to solidify. This allowed me to heat shrink the fingers, preventing the wire twist issue, cap the fingers, preventing the poking issue, and segment the fingers, preventing the joint issue. And it only took me three goes. However, despite these successes, this took waaaaaay too long and I can't afford to do it again, so these hand armatures will be the only ones used in the film.

Plasticine added, finished.