Dementor hands how to part 2.

Okay so this is part two of how we made our dementor hands, this is basically the decoration of the models I'd made, it's really easy to do and has worked quite well.

Here's where we left the hands -

On to decoration.

The first thing I did was to build up the back and the palm of each hand, I used masking tape for this as it's easy to tear into pieces and it can be painted over and such like.

Masking tape applied - 

Now for some tissue paper.

We decided that tissue paper would be a good substitute for skin because you can make it look wrinkly and it's easy to apply.

Holding the hands in a craft vice (not essential) we began gluing torn up strips of tissue paper to them, making sure to not smooth things out.

Hand ready - 

These vices are 'handy' as they can be moved about.

Tissue paper ready - 

The strips don't have to be neat, in fact the rougher the better.

To stick the tissue paper to the hands we used pva glue and applied it using a brush, we also found that a fairly stiff paint brush allows you to sort of pucker the tissue paper and gives a more wrinkled effect.

Applying the tissue paper - 

It is a bit time consuming.

It did take a while to cover each hand and we also had to let the glue dry, in the end we covered the hands a couple of times in tissue paper to add to the effect and because one layer was a little too thin.

Starting to look a bit like skin - 

Ready for another layer.

To make the nails I cut out a piece of a plastic milk bottle and drew some rough nail shapes onto it, a blunt pencil or knitting needle works well to mark the plastic, then I cut them out using scissors.

Nails drawn out - 

Pointy.

To fix the nails to the end of each finger I used one of my small carving chisels to make a curved cut on the end of each finger, this could be done with a sharp knife, or you could glue the nails onto the wood.

Finger ends ready for nails - 

Now to fix the nails.

Here's the chisel I used (you can buy sets of these for under £10) - 

Useful for a variety of jobs, not just carving.

Nails glued in place - 

They look like nails so I'm happy.

Both hands almost done - 

Creepy.

We used some black tissue paper to colour them, but you could just as easily use some black paint, I'd suggest using a mat emulsion or poster paint if you do paint them mainly because it doesn't have a shine to it, which is the one thing that bothers me about the ones we've made, they are perhaps a bit too shiny (it's the glue) 

So this year I plan to modify them a little, and we also have some gauze we might use on them for added effect, and that's the good thing about them really, they can be modified easily and even with the tissue paper and glue they can still be posed differently, there's not a great deal of movement, but enough to change the finger positions and such like, and best of all they cost about £4 to make and will last a while.

Not the greatest picture, but here's a close up - 

They do look like they might grab you.

Thanks for reading, and happy Halloween.