I was so inspired by Laika Studio's Paranorman that i decided to learn how to make a stop motion puppet hand with a posable wire armature.

1st I created the stylised hand model in Super Sculpey oven bake clay I burned it a bit but hey who cares! 

2nd I cast it with plaster and created a mold this took a 

few goes but i got there using traditional builders plaster

which probably wasnt the best thing to use in future I would use 

artists plaster. 

I watched a couple of videos online the first one

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqzKTYrgDOM 

suggested using liquid latex which for me didn't work very well the latex was fiddly to work with and the hand lost all shape and dried like a prune leaving a fairly horrific looking gnarled claw! lol

I did some research and found out that theres a silicone that is pretty good for this sort of thing its called patsil gel 10 and is used to make prostetic limbs so I bought a batch of this stuff and some pigment. 

I painted a layer in the plaster cast first and then placed the armature wire in and then filled the cast with silicone and clamped the two halves together (looks like a tasty cheese toasty!)

 And Success!

One functioning stop motion hand with optional coin ring ;)

When I get another chance il make these wee chavy trainers in white silicone.