1st time needs help with making hands

As the title says, this is my first time making hands. The project is this: I need to make a pair of three fingered hands to go over my own hands. Think movie Ninja Turtles. The hands only need to go a few inches above my wrist.

I know absolutely nothing about doing life casting. I've read a few tutorials online about how to do a reproduction of my hand. I'm assuming after that I'd use modeling clay to flesh out how I want the hands to look, but after that I hit a mental roadblock. I need to be able to put the on and (hopefully) have some flexibility.

If someone could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.

ive never done this either, so take everything i say with a grain of salt, but you make the mold of your hand with your fingers splayed apart like they would be inside of the "glove" that your making, cast one of those up in plaster, scuplt your 3 fingered hand on top of that, then make a mold of that, pour some latex inside of it, slosh it around to get it in all of the nooks and crannies, and let it sit for a while, pour out the extra latex, let it sit for a while, then pull it out of the mold, i would imagine you could do a 1 piece mold, as long as there arent any crazy undercuts or weird spots, but again, ive never done this either.

You do the reproduction of your hand in plaster, while spreading your fingers into a fan. Thumb separate, then index and middle finger together, and ring-finger and pinkie together. Then you sculpt on the outside of that, finish it, mold it, and then the bonus - you also made a silicone pull from that life cast mold and you hold it inside the sculpt mold, while pouring the latex or whatever flexible material you'll make these in.

At least that's how I imagine it's done. However, more professional people will hopefully guide you to the best and easiest method to make form fitting wearable glove hands.

Whatever you do, do not mix up a bucket of plaster and put your hand inside to make a mold, you will not be able to remove your hand, and the heat generated by the plaster curing will burn all the flesh off your fingers.

This may sound obvious, even alarmist, but somebody did this a while back and lost most of their fingers, it was reported quite widely.

Take a bit more time to learn the right way to go about this, with alginate, safely. Never rush in and potentially injure yourself, no matter how good an idea it seemed at the time!

Wow, this gives me a lot to think about. I'm almost wondering if I should commission the hands since this seems a little over my head.

Thanks for everyone's responses. This is a great start!

There should be books available on the subject at the local library. It really shouldn't be that difficult finding the right information and it will be cheaper than hiring out.

They key word of advise is always try it out on something that can tolerate failure and damage before trying it on yourself.