Tiny Vol update

I started working on Vol again, with this vague hope of perhaps wearing him around Penny Arcade Expo. This probably won't happen, at the current progress rate, but I'm glad to have unshelved him for the time being.


Presently, I've returned to the inch-by-inch, tape-and-test, reposition, tape-and-test tedium that is the process of building his big, articulate hands; this time, to give them skin. The understructure is nearly finished, there's just some rigging and elastic to put in the thumbs.


One never quite appreciates all the glorious and convenient properties of skin until one is trying to replicate as many of them as possible. Ugh. I can't seem to achieve "extremely stretchy," "minimal bunching" and "smooth scales" all at the same time, with the framework that's under there. "Water resistant" isn't even on the radar.


I'm chagrined at how often I spend months engineering my projects as I go, only to start getting nervous about how they start looking toward the end. :bademoticon: Seems like there must have been some better way to do this but I can't think of it.


I hope paint and some textural detail will help after the skeleton is all covered. At least it's still moving reasonably well so far, even though I've lost about two inches of flexion at the claw tips due to fabric squishing into joints.