Step 10: Arm Extensions
Making a person look bigger in costume is a challenge in maintaining proportions. If you make someone's legs longer, you'll also have to make their arms longer.
In this case, I needed to make giant hands and add an extra foot or so to the wearer's reach. To achieve this, I sculpted out a pair of palms using oil-based clay. Then I went ahead and sculpted individual knuckles for each of the hands using more clay as well as some wooden balls and scraps of PVC pipe I had laying around. Then I made a mold of each of the parts and rotocast them in urethane resin to make them hollow and lightweight.
Once I had castings lined up, it was just a matter of choosing a gesture* and gluing the finger pieces into place on the palms. For the hands that would be holding weapons, I had to build the fingers around the grips. The assembled hands were then glued onto the end of a piece of 4" ABS drain pipe with a handle inside. The pipe would slide over the wearer's arm inside the costume's forearm and act as a sort of brace to help the wearer wield the weapons and whatnot.
*It was very hard to maintain an adult level of maturity in this stage. If you ever stumble across photos of Space Marines flipping peace signs, giving people rabbit ears, or poking each other in the eyes 3 Stooges style, know that I faltered in a future build.
In this case, I needed to make giant hands and add an extra foot or so to the wearer's reach. To achieve this, I sculpted out a pair of palms using oil-based clay. Then I went ahead and sculpted individual knuckles for each of the hands using more clay as well as some wooden balls and scraps of PVC pipe I had laying around. Then I made a mold of each of the parts and rotocast them in urethane resin to make them hollow and lightweight.
Once I had castings lined up, it was just a matter of choosing a gesture* and gluing the finger pieces into place on the palms. For the hands that would be holding weapons, I had to build the fingers around the grips. The assembled hands were then glued onto the end of a piece of 4" ABS drain pipe with a handle inside. The pipe would slide over the wearer's arm inside the costume's forearm and act as a sort of brace to help the wearer wield the weapons and whatnot.
*It was very hard to maintain an adult level of maturity in this stage. If you ever stumble across photos of Space Marines flipping peace signs, giving people rabbit ears, or poking each other in the eyes 3 Stooges style, know that I faltered in a future build.
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Might be difficult to hold the prop weapons though.
Given the awkwardness of the extended arms and the bulk of the weapons, I can't count on the hands to have anything like the kind of strength needed to hold them.
The only problem is what you said about the prop weapons. When using a "hand extension" (term I just made up), things are a lot harder to grab and hold on to. On top of that, even light objects feel about twice their normal weight.
But with enough practice, you can manage quite well.
Should do most of the holding for you, but the weight is still an issue.
Not sure where you would put the extra parts though...