If you're happy and you know it clap your hands! That's right, it's been hands and arms week here at bk85's House of Muppets.
I have been thinking about the hands in the back of my mind for a while now because I needed to decide on a shape for the arm rods. I definitely want removable arm rods, but don't love the idea of having to stitch or pin part of the pocket closed for flag rods. I thought about the L shape end to the rod but I happened to see an instagram post by Rick Lyon that shows an ingenious way to make removable arm rods. I'll have my next post focused on the arm rods but long story short, I needed a square shaped hole to receive the arm rod. Whereas the interior stabilizing part of the palm of a lot of Kermit replicas I've seen are normally made out of cut plastic, I decided to 3d print mine. I went through a few different iterations, refining it as I went along.
Basically, Kermit's fingers are fleece wrapped around a bendable wire. That wire is attached to a trapezoid plastic plate in his palm, which is also what the arm rod attaches to. I first made a template of the hand shape in Illustrator after taking some measurements from various photos.
I then took the trapezoid shape, imported it into Blender and made a 3d object. I also beveled the corners while I was at it.
Still being a total amateur in 3d modeling, boolean modifiers are my go to for adjusting a shape. I basically created other shapes and subtracted them from the trapezoid. I'll spare you the various iterations and just go straight to the one I based on the Rick Lyon arm rod. I created a square hole that will receive the arm rod, 5 holes for the finger wires, and I also tapered it a bit so that it got thinner the closer it got to the fingers.
I then printed two of them out in white PLA+. I also epoxied a segment of a 5/32" square brass rod that I scuffed up for better adhesion. The brass is just there to be a more durable sleeve that will eventually receive the 1/8" square brass tip of my arm rods. I thought about just making the hole dimensions smaller during the design process and forgoing the brass sleeve, but I was worried the plastic would erode too fast. The key to this type of arm rod connection is a nice, tight, secure fit because there is no locking mechanism.
After the above was done, I ground down the rod to be mostly flush with the plastic. I then took some 20 gauge tinned copper wire and slipped lengths of it through the holes in the palm plate. I next took the two ends of the wire, popped them in my drill and slowly twisted them to lock them and provide more structure. I didn't worry about the length, I just made sure I had more enough length for the fingers and thumb. I'll trim these to the correct lengths in a bit. I then remembered I had come clear epoxy (which I wish I used for the brass fitting) and used that to make sure the wires were extra secure and locked into place.
Time to move on to the fleece! One thing I noticed just about every high quality picture of Kermit, is that the arm seam runs along the inside of his arm, going from armpit to up the center of the palm and and then it makes a kind of funky shape. I believe this is because Kermit's arm rods aren't the traditional shape and are instead wrapped around the palm plate. In order to remove and reattach them, you have to open up the hand, take them out, and sew it back up again. Either it's to make that easier, or just because that's what somebody did to the pattern at one point, and everybody followed suit. Either way, I couldn't wrap my head around the geometry so I decide to forgo it. I also didn't want the arm seam to run along the side that has the thumb since that is the side presented to the audience the most. I went with a seam long the back of the arm, meaning the thumb would have to be slipped through a slit in the middle of the pattern. Here are 2 images that I sued as my main reference for the hands/arms. The first one is a 70's Kermit and the other is Jim's last Kermit. I will eventually redo my body so that it matches the proportions of the final Kermit, because I just prefer that look and after comparing it to earlier lower res pictures of Kermit on Jim's hand, it matches the shape better than the references I was originally using that are all museum displays. But that's a task for a later time.
One other thing I noticed is that Kermit's fingers aren't 2 pieces of fleece glued together, but one single piece per finger that is wrapped around the wire. The fold of the thumb faces down, the folds of the index, middle, and ring fingers face the thumb, and the fold of the pinky faces outward away from the hand. Originally I was going to just double the finger/thumb shape but then realized that simple rectangle shapes would be best so that I could trim each finger into shape after gluing/folding.
I cut out the shapes, and sewed up the arms using a whip stitch. I stopped stitching right at the ends of where the arm rod will go, as the rest of the hand will be ladder stitched.
Now, back to work on the hands. I cut a little slit in the base of each finger because it will wrap around the plastic palm plate by about 1/4". I should have only done this to the middle 2 fingers but didn't realize it until I was almost done. Oh well, next time. I also cut the wire to length. I cut it the length of each finger, knowing that I would be folding over the tip to bring it just under sized. The fold is just so that the wire doesn't accidentally poke through the fabric. I also added a dab of hot glue to each tip to prevent this even more.
Since the fabric tends to suck up the adhesive, I brushed a bit of contact cement on the inside of each finger, and let that fully dry. I then re-applied a super light coating of the adhesive again now that the previous application had "sealed" up the fabric. I also added a bit of adhesive to the finger wires and the finger and thumb edges of the plastic. Time to start folding.
Next, I trimmed each finger and thumb to give it the appropriate shape and clean up the non-folded edges.
The time has come to insert it into the arm and connect everything together. I trimmed down the fuzziness of the base of the fingers that are attached to the plate, just to help reduce bulk. I also trimmed the bottom of them so that there was a nice straight line in case it shows through the top of the arm/hand fleece. I applied more contact cement to the entire palm plate, and to some of the inside of the fleece so that it would adhere nicely. Once the hand was attached, I ladder stitched the remaining part of the hand and around the fingers/thumb to make sure everything was secure and the seam/attachment points looked as clean as possible. I could use some more practice on this as it was serviceable, but not necessarily up to my standards. It looks good from afar, but when you get up close, you can see some of the stitches.
Then, I stuffed the arms with poly-fil, making sure to clamp the arm halfway through to prevent poly-fil from bulking out the elbow. FYI, I think I'll be using 1/4 inch foam for the arms in my next attempt.
Finally, I ladder stitched the arms to the body. The proportions are distorted in the picture making it look worse, but they are ever so slightly too big for this body shape. That being said, I'm going to keep the pattern as-is because they'll look a lot better when I do my larger v2 body. Also, once the green sleeve is attached to the bottom, I think it will help them look more proportional.
The final step was acting a few drops of super glue around the arm rod hole to keep the fleece in place and help prevent accidental wear and tear.
Next up- Arm rods!
. Sorry buddy, I'll get it right eventually.
