Ed Elric: Hand (again)

FIXED! :D

There isn't much more I need to say about that. After feeling rather down about pretty much busting the finger joints and hot glue studs, I went to sleep. When I woke up, I had a brilliant idea on how to salvage the project without having to remake everything. I fished the the studs and finger joints out of the trash and got to work.

First, I cut the polystyrene tabs from off of the studs, since one of the tabs had snapped when I broke things and the other tabs were in pretty sorry shape. I then hot glued the studs directly to the top hand plate, leaving about half of each stud sticking out beyond the edge of the plate. Then, I removed what elastic was still stuck to the broken finger joints and measured off new elastic. Instead of forming the joints first like the tutorial suggested, I found it easier to glue the elastic down first and then form the finger joints. This also allowed me to get the spacing more exact between each joint. The elastic was then hot glued to the inside of the top hand plate.

So now I can say with great pleasure, "The hand is done!" Now, on to the forearm.

Ed Elric: Hand

Well, technically, the hand is done. But, only technically. The finger plates busted as I was taking the hand off after taking this picture. The studs up by the fingers also broke. So, it looks like I'll be building both over again. I'm not terribly happy about that, but at least it gives me a chance to not have hot glue smeared all over the outside of the fingers. Plus, I'll be able to space the joints better on the elastic. Yes, the finger plates are glued to elastic to allow flexibility. Also so that I don't get the pieces mixed up since many of them are about the same size. Oh, well. It looked okay while it lasted. At least the hand plates look all right, even if they are a little big on me. I can always pad them later with left over foam. All in all, tonight was a battle with the project. The hot glue gun and I were not on friendly terms. Such it is. If the only thing I have to redo are some studs and the finger plates, I don't think I'm too bad off.

Ed Elric: Hand Plates

Not bad for a day's work, if I do say so myself. There are things I could be happier with, but all in all, I'm satisfied. I'm mostly disappointed in the small "screws" I made on the top of the hand. Those studs and screws, by the way, are made of hot glue. I stuck my thumb in one of them while it was still warm, so it's a bit warped. I was mad about that, but it was still less frustrating than trying to sew those finger joints. So, now I just have to figure out how to attach all the hand pieces together without sewing. Yeah, the tutorial I'm using says to sew it all together. For the sake of my sanity, no. There is no good that can come of me trying to force a needle through several layers of polystyrene, hot glue, vinyl, and craft foam. Not gonna happen. I will admit... this came out reasonably well, and I'm horribly afraid that anything I do to it at this point might mess it up. Oh well, onward and upward. To dorkdom!

Ed Elric: Fingerplates

I've finished the fingerplates for Ed's hand. There were alot of pitfalls along the way. First, the pattern pieces for three of my five fingers were too large. Apparently, the girl who made the pattern has the same size pinky and ring finger as I do, but her middle, index, and thumb are almost twice the size of mine. So, there was a lot of playing around with resizing. And I've learned that my middle finger, index finger, ring finger and thumb are all the same size around. Another pitfall (actually most of the pitfalls at this point) was sewing the finger joints together. The video I was using said to use a heavy duty needle and 4-ply thread. Yeah.... so... after I destroyed two or three finger joints, broke one "heavy duty" needle, and bent another one, I found the original tutorial which said to hotglue the pieces together. Not as sturdy as sewing, but better for my sanity. Hot glue is for the win! So, here's what they look like. Now, on to the rest of the hand!

Ed Elric's Right Arm

Well, I decided to put Tinkadin on hiatus for a while since, of my projects at the moment, Ed's right arm is the most critical as I'd like to have it done in time for Otakon this July. Status: All fingerplates are cut and covered in vinyl. On the downside, when I went to start on sewing the plates together, I busted one of the pinky finger plates, so I'll need to recut and vinyl that piece. My "heavy duty" needle was bent to a nearly 90 degree angle on the attempt, so I'm going to try again with heavier needle and thicker thread.