Sculpting Hands for Max!

So not much is different in the way I sculpted Max's hands compared to blob. But one thing that is different is the size. 

Max's hands are very small! These are the smallest hands I've ever sculpted, therefore this was going to be a challenge for me!

For this project I bought some plastiline to sculpt the hands and feet with. 

Plastiline is an oil and wax based clay and comes in a range of hardness. 

I chose the compound 55, which is classed as 'hard' on the animation tool kit website.

The benefit of using this over sculpey is that, you can heat this up with a hair dryer, heat gun, and i've even seen people microwave big parts, to soften the clay before use. 

I began by pushing the plastiline on to the wire armature, not being to precious with it. 

The reason why I'm not being to precious with sculpting at the moment is that I'm just trying to get the form of the hand to look very similar if not identical on the 2 hands. 

It's a lot harder to sculpt, clean and finish one hand then start from scratch on the other and trying to replicate what you've done. If you do key stages at the same time your more likely to be able to amend any mistakes!

Once the form of the hands was sculpted I then began the smoothing process. 

To smooth out these small hands, I started with a rubber tip tool and rolled over the clay to get a smooth surface. I then used a baby wipe and lighter fluid to break down the clay and smooth further. Finally I applied baby powder with my fingertips to finish off smoothing.

Finished hands Below! As you'll see Max's hands are the size of my fingertip! 

Very small hands indeed!