Scratchbuilding Hands

Hi guys! Here's a hand tutorial for you all. Just to show hands can be built from nearly anything, here's a handy (get it?) way to build hands for all your customs - they can be built bigger, in the same way, [but I] don't think I could go any smaller.

1. To start use a piece of treasel wood, cost £1,which is soft to cut, and scoring the wood into strips using a Stanley knife.






2. Then sand and cut into smaller sections - these will form finger tips and the middles part of the fingers:
Four (4) for the tips;
four (4) for the middle section;
one (1) tip which is slightly smaller
and a slightly smaller middle section too:










3. Using a Dremel gently sand each finger to shape the parts, and with the edge of the dremel blade make a slot on the finger tips. This will allow the middle sections to slot in (holes were then drilled).

4. To join the fingers, I used a nail (simply cut down); to stop the nail from coming out, I mixed up a bit of epoxy:






5. The palm of the hand have slots made and drilled from the side. [Using the] same principle [as above], a nail was pushed through to hold the fingers on. The thumb area was made different for both hands, so a pose can be different. Again, a slot was made for the thumb, a small hole drilled, a nail dropped in, and epoxyed to hold the thumb in place:










6.Once complete, I simply used car filler to tidy up the hand, and a piece of styrene was added to finish them of:




Heres a shot with leader class (movie 2007 Optimus) Prime's hands for comparison - the back of the hands have been left, [as] these can be drilled gently to fix in a ball joint etc.

Anyways, I hope this helps you all out!

All the best,
Colin

(Additional notes are following the discussion that took place after this was originally posted. The useful information can be found below! ~Superquad7)

This will work with anything, which is why i used wood to prove this. I think coloured perspex would be good, too.

The hands are a bit bigger than Masterpiece Optimus Prime hands (probably one and half times the size).

Attached Thumbnails