HOTGLUE
HANDS
CONSTRUCTION

Here's a sketch of the bones of the human hand. Obviously, you aren't going to recreate it faithfully (or maybe you want to try, ya psycho), but I've included it as something to work from. The first thing to remember is hot glue is hot!  You WILL get burned! Run! Run away from it! Save yourself! OK, fine. You're going to try it anyway. Whatever. It's not my skin and I did try to warn you....

	Hotmelt gluesticks, Xacto knife and candle.
	I use an acrylic clipboard to cut and melt glue on, but old countertop works well--any flat surface the glue will not bond to. Cover with aluminum foil, if necessary. You can peel off the foil later.
	You can cut the sticks straight across and fill in the joints later...
	...or cut the sticks at an angle and piece them together as you want. Hold the "joint" ends in the candle flame for a second or two, just enough to melt the glue slightly, then join the ends together.
	Decide which finger is which. Sllightly melt each finger at the base and position them as you want them on your work surface. Hold a few seconds until set in place. Cut four slightly longer pieces to use as the bones of the hand. This area will be filled in, so you don't have to be exact.
	Here's the part where you get to play. Use your glue gun and begin filling in the palm of the hand area, including the base of the fingers--so the whole thing becomes one piece.
	Make sure to let it set and pry it off your work surface occasionally. Too much glue and you'll never have the strength to get it off. Trust me, I tried.
	Make sure to add a thumb.
	Use scrap pieces of hot glue, small disks cut from a stick or, as I've done here, a scrap of cardboard to form the web between the thumb and fingers.

Now you're on your own. It's all a matter of adding and carving off glue
as you see fit. A butane torch is a great help for smoothing and
removing areas. Be careful and work slowly. You can easily deform the
shape of your hand by melting too much at a time. You may not want to
smooth the hands much at all. The whole process of using the gun
creates a veiny, string-like effect.

This is NOT a craft suitable for children!

Hot glue is HOT! Melted hotglue will take off skin,
have no doubts about that. I suggest lower temp
hot glue and gun--and alot of patience. I'm only
telling you how I do this, I am not suggesting
 it to anyone, as you will eventually get burned,


I paint my hands with whatever paint I have handy--
and tissue paper or paper towels. Something along the
lines of paper mache or the "snot rag" technique
others have developed. Tear pieces of paper towels
or tissue, paint over it until you have it built up the way
you want. Seal it with something or other.

Good luck. Make sure you have ice and ointment.