Sculpting hands

[Hobbyinovator]

Anyone got any advise for how to sculpt hands? It is the hardest obstacle for me this far. What's your approach? On my Germanic warrior, I first made fingers of tinner steel wire before adding sculpey, but it easily slides of. It definitely seems to be harder sculpting closed hands than open.

 

[Einion]

On my Germanic warrior, I first made fingers of tinner steel wire before adding sculpey, but it easily slides of.

If you use a wire armature one way to help things adhere (especially thinner layers) is to dot on superglue over the wire and then sprinkle with baking soda. This sets the superglue instantly and provides a rough key that putties adhere to well. I use this with epoxy putties but I think this will work when sculpting in polymer clays too.

It definitely seems to be harder sculpting closed hands than open.

For most people it's the reverse - free-standing fingers are notorious for being difficult to do, both technically and artistically/aesthetically (individual fingers are tricky 3D shapes to envisage and replicate).

For hands gripping something the common approach is to apply an oversize blob of putty, press it into place and then begin to cut it to shape. Refine the shapes, trim a little more, shape etc. until you get to something you're happy with. Similar approach for a fist, perhaps working onto a palm shape of hardened putty. With an open hand it is pretty common to work over a wire armature of some sort, if scale allows.

...

For anyone working in epoxy putties my general advice would be: don't be afraid to wait for something to cure then add more putty in another stage. I'll often add even tiny additional touches in later stages - a slight swell on each finger knuckle, a little more flesh on the end of a nose, the tragus of the ear - it takes more time but it'll usually yield a better result at the end of the day than trying to do too much with wet putty moving around beneath the sculpting tool.

Einion

 

[Bad91Fellow]

i usually wait untill the putty isn't soft anymore. the i sculpt the fingers into the correct position and when its dried I carve them with a knife to the right shape.
yours

 

[Hobbyinovator]

The hands I have been doing for my Germanic warrior are not sculpted in epoxy, but in polymer:
http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27634&page=2

 

[Anders Heintz]

I carve my hands when they are not holding onto something. If the hand is holding an object, start with a hand blank, essentially a hand without the fingers and the thumb, glue it onto the object the figure is holding, then apply wet putty to the object and hand, feather them togther and make the rough finger shapes in the wet putty. Once cured fine tune the fingers/hand with some carving.

For open hands, I start with a blob of cured putty in the shape of the desired hand. Then it is just a matter of carefully removing material until the hand looks good. Like Einion, I sometimes have to add more putty to the carved areas.

As for sculpting 'free' hands in sculpey, I have no clue, seems like it would be easier to get some two part epoxy putty and try it that way. If the hand is on the hip or again, holding something, it should not be any different to sculpt the hands in sculpey from epoxy.

 

[T50]

There is no "one" way to sculpt as you can see from all the replies
here by different artists.

For me the most important point when sculpting hands is to get the size
right. In my earlier days of Alpine, I used to catch flaks from modelers
saying that the hands I sculpt are too big. So first thing is to get the size
right. Forget the anatomy chart and all that measurements. It has to
"look" right. The detail comes after once you have the right size.

As other artists pointed out, carving is a good way to approach hand
sculpting once you have the basic shape ready.

In order to really get the hands looking like hands, I recommend you to
sketch out the hands exactly how you want from looking at real hands.
While you are drawing the hands, you begin to understand the shape,
proportion, and how you want to sculpt them.

If you are making hands from the image you have in your head without
looking at the real hands, you get exactly what you ask for: imaginary hands
and not realistic ones.

Hope it helped a bit.