Give Him a Big Hand..!

Hey guys,

So after finally finishing lockdown 1 (yay) I could once again set sail on the good ship Hey Negrita, destination Fishin'.

We are in desperate need of puppets to be able to start animating. Our main jungle set is on its way to completion, but we can't animate without characters. So we need to make that our next priority.

Today I made a large scale hand armature for use in our close up shots, of which there are many. Eventually it'll be covered in Plasticine to hide the armature of course. Below is a quick articulation test I created using it:

(Forgive the compressed quality of the video, I couldn't upload it in any larger file format).

Or click here for a bigger version of the above.

Update: Ok So I have covered the above armature in flesh tone Plastacine, but the annoying thing is whenever the joints are articulated the Plastacine 'rips' apart. Does anyone know how to prevent this..? I've always wondered when watching Aardman stuff how they stop this from happening. I image we just have to let it rip, and then smooth the plastacine over the gaping tear. I'll continue experimenting though...

-James