Making Talos Awakes: Elbows, forearms & hands

Attempts to heat-bend the elbows through 90° resulted in forms that were too rounded. So instead, I cut forearm sections from donor casts to graft onto the existing upper arms.

To set the hands in their correct positions I heated the forearms, rotated the wrists and then set the angle of the hands to match film footage.

Constructing the left elbow

I grafted in a new section from the mid-point of the back of the left arm to elbow. This introduced a downwards curve to the upper arm and lengthened it to match the dimensions of the right arm.

Next I fitted the forearm, remedying an elongation of the elbow that I’d hadn’t corrected during the restoration. I then used four further grafts to rotate the muscle details around the 90° bend of the elbow joint and reinstate the muscle structures around them.

Setting the fingers of the left hand

In Jason and the Argonauts when Talos first comes to life at 33:40 (right), the fingers of the left hand are extended with a slight bend. The second finger being more flexed than the others.

First I cut fine lines through the back of the joints (above). This reduced the prominence of the knuckles and to eased the straightening process. Then I heat-bent and super-glued the hand into the correct position (above).

Final adjustments to the left arm

I corrected the slightly concave appearance of the left bicep with a reformed graft (below left). I used a further graft to smooth a sharply defined form at the end of the forearm muscle, leading to the elbow and triceps muscle (below right – light graft).

Correcting a flattening of the right shoulder

The shoulder muscle and the back of the deltoid muscle had been slightly but noticeably flattened during the rotation (above left). To correct this I first hollowed out the inside of the shoulder with a die grinder. By applying gentle heat I was able press the shoulder back into an acceptable form and then replace the back of the deltoid with a graft (above right).

Realigning the right forearm

The rotation of the upper body meant that the natural line of the forearm pointed through the left knee. Consequently I would need to rotate the elbow and bicep into line with the forearm. You can see the misalignment of the bicep and forearm in the photo on the right.

In preparation for the corrective work, I built a simple jig to aid relocation, cut away the front of the upper arm below the deltoid muscle and cut a replacement graft. I swelled the graft’s bicep into a form more reflective of the arm’s flexed position and, after adjusting bicep and the front half of the deltoid muscle to form a credible front, upper arm profile, I set the graft and replaced the back of the arm in the same way (below left and right).

Final grafts to correct the right arm’s muscle form

Because the bicep had been rotated into its correct position, when I fitted the forearm, I found I had to replace the muscle graft that stretched over the top of the forearm and around the outside of the upper arm, as the original now fouled the upper arm (above). Once the forearm was fitted I made an additional small graft to refine the bulge of the bicep (above right and right).

The inside of the forearm needed two grafts to rotate and compress the muscle around the elbow joint (right), and another was needed to swell the triceps (below left) and adjust the inner arm down to the elbow (below right).

Finally, I replaced an earlier pectoral muscle graft to correct the line running beneath the pectoral muscle to just above the bicep (right).