Realistic articulated Severed Arm

[Ruffaloem]

Hello, I am brand new to the forum and I am very excited to be a new member. I have a lot of projects in mind but the first thing I want to attempt is a severed arm. Nothing completely gross or bloody though. I want it to look and to some extent feel real and to bend and move like a real arm.

This idea came from an episode of the walking dead when the group is still on the farm and the group is cleaning up bodies and loading them into a truck and Andrea gets out of the truck and picks up a severed arm. the arm looked so real and moved like it was just cut off a walker. I want to have this thing just on the floor in my house so when someone comes over they will as me "What is that?" and I'll say "pick it up." and to just have that moment of kinda shock and amusement would be great.

But Im kinda stuck on a few things like how to simulate the muscle and bone to get the piece to weigh right

I know that Im going to cast my own arm in alja-safe but from there Im not sure where to go. any help would be well recieved

 

[Wellss01]

Aljinate casting off your hand , then i would take a plaster casting from the mold. Once you have a plaster hand, i would take a two part plaster mold off it using "mold soap" as a release agent. Once you have a negative plaster mold, let it dry out and then fill in with latex. Wait x amount of time and pour our the excess. You will be left with a latex skin. The next thing would be to fill the latex hand with foam while it is still in the mold. I would use something like s100 or similar 2 part soft expanding foam. Once the foam is cured, remove it from the mold and trim any flashing. The just paint to your liking using latex based paint.


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[Ruffaloem]

That sounds good but I want it to be able to bend at the wrist and elbow. I was thinking of putting plastic arm bones wrapped in plaster bandages (to simulate muscle) in the mold then filling it with a two part soft rubber.
What do you think?

 

[Wellss01]

View attachment 156082
heres a quick pick of what i would do
(I'm not a great iphone drawer)


The red lines would be fibreglass rod
The blue being a length of surgical tubing
Yellow is the foam
And black being latex skin

I would use the fiberglass rod as the stiffening and the tubing as the flex.

This is only a suggestion, if you have better ways go for it



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[Wellss01]

View attachment 156083


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[Pobbrett]

pvc pipe might be easier to come by and probably cheaper you could also fill the surgical tube with lead shot for added weight but to get it right will take some trial and error

 

[Wellss01]

Good idea


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[Gigatron]

Why not get this Bucky Arm and Hand (4th Quality) ? Skeleton Factory . It has full articulation, and you can cut it to any length you need.

I believe in episodes of MythBusters, they've used rope to simulate muscle fibers. I'm sure you can use varying thicknesses of rope to simulate different muscles and tendons.

Cast your arm, make the latex skin. Secure the rope muscles to the skeletal arm, and insert the arm into the mold.

Personally, I would probably cast the latex skin, in actual skin color. Latex takes color pretty well - you just need to mix the correct color, before hand. After the "skin" has fully cured, insert the arm into the mold, and back-fill with a reddish colored latex, to simulate the muscle color.

-Fred

 

[Ruffaloem]

that bucky arm will work great and I really like the rope idea. where could I get lead shot?

also I'm not to sure about the latex skin thin. I just don't know how that would work. I found this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=145TDzTXluU) where they are casting an arm then filling the ajanate mold with a rubber.
Could I do the same process but place the simulated bone and muscle structure in the mold then add the silicon