Life Size Doll Armature - Making the Hands

I wrote the post before I went to the mountains.  I am still learning to use my new computer with a different operating system on it.  Apparently it did not like the way I added pictures to the blog.  It would not load the post.  I am trying a new way of adding the pictures.  I hope it will post this time.  I am sorry for it being so long between posts.

I have been working on this project for a while.  It is finally getting to the stage of making the details.  Today I will be blogging about making the hands.   As always, there is more than one way to do something, so the first choice I had to make was what method to use.  I have tried different means of making doll hands over the years.  Some hands have been sewn and stuffed fabric.  I have sculpted hands from bake in the oven clay.  I have made mittens so that I did not have to show the hands for winter dolls such as Father Christmas figures.  For this doll I wanted to try a new method, tape and gloves with an internal wire armature so that the fingers could be posed as needed.

Since this doll is life size, I could use my own hands to make the structure for the hands.  I made one hand at a time.  I started by slipping on a vinyl glove.   I used vinyl because that is what I happened to have on hand at the moment.  A nitril (spelling ?) glove might have been a better choice because they tend to be a tighter fit.  However, I decided to go with what I had in the studio. Some methods of making hand shapes with tape suggest just wrapping the tape around the hand and fingers until everything is covered.  I chose not to use this method because I felt it would make the fingers too rigid for what I wanted to do with them.  I tore bits of masking tape into small manageable sized pieces and beginning with the fingers started covering the glove with the tape, overlapping the pieces of tape.  The tape was pressed tightly around the fingers and hand.  I covered the glove up to the wrist.

Once the glove was covered it was time to cut it off my hand.  I used a pair of scissors with rounded tips to avoid injuring myself.  I am right handed, but I was still able to cut the glove off by myself.  I started the cut at the center of the wrist and cut up almost to the tip of the middle finger.  From there I was able to pull my hand out without cutting any of the other fingers.  After removing the glove, I taped the cut pieces back together.  Then I made the other hand.

I wish I had stopped to take a photo of the hands at that point so I could have one for the blog.  However, I was on a roll and just kept on working.  The only photos of the hands were taken after I placed them on the doll.

To be able to pose the fingers I made an internal armature from wire.  I used 16 gauge wire, but if I were to do it over again I would use an 18 gauge wire.  The 16 gauge was a little stiff.  I cut 22 inch (55.88 cm) lengths of wire for each finger and the thumbs.  I bent the wire in half so that there would be a rounded piece of wire at the end of each finger rather than a sharp piece of wire.  Once the wire was folded, I taped the wire to hold the to pieces close together.  The wire was inserted into the finger and then stuffed with polyester fiber fill until the finger was firm, but not bulging.

As I added each wire, I also taped the next finger to the previous finger at about the center of the palm of the hand.  It helped keep the finger wires from slipping.  It also provided a platform for the stuffing that would fill out the hand.  Once all the fingers and the thumb had been stuffed, it was time to stuff the palm and back of the hand.  I used pieces of cotton batting to stuff the palm and back of the hand, adding a little polyester fiber fill at the base of each finger to form knuckles.

Because I had used my own hands to create the doll hands, I could easily mark the joints of the fingers.  That helped to determine where to create folds in the wire to make the hand hold the pose I wanted.  Once again, this was a bit more difficult than it needed to be because I had used a stiffer wire.  The fingers are not going to be moving out of that shape easily, so maybe it was not such a problem after all.

I already had a plan for the hands decided when I planned to make this doll into a dancer.  She was supposed to be holding a fan in her raised hand and the hem of her dress in the lower hand.  Now that I am going to do something else with this doll I am not sure what she will be holding in the raised hand.  I will figure it out as I go along.  Who knows it could be a glass of wine or it could be a dagger or something.  I am sure that it will all come together sooner or later.

The long wires protruded well past the wrist.  This  was by design.  The wires were slipped up into the PVC pipe of the armature.  This helped hold the hand in place.  The hand was also taped onto the PVC pipe.  I added a little stuffing here and there and some bubble wrap to integrate the hand into the arm.

So that is about where I am with the doll right now.  With just a little more tweaking to the armature I will be ready to start on the papier   mâché.  I will be blogging on this in the next blog post.