I adore these Hylics secrets of handcrafted art and actual hands

I still say the Hylics games are some of the prettiest around, with their striking mix of claymation and video capture. So I'm delighted to realise that, unbeknowst to me, creator Mason Lindroth occasionally give behind-the-scenes peeks at props and animations on Twitter. It is very interesting to see those original handcrafted figures. And it is very funny to discover that the process of animating one character's hands involved wearing a little cardboard green screen like a shroud while waggling a sexy gloved arm through the hole.

For starters, check out this sassy pair:

But what, on the left, where's their hand animation from? Well...

I cannot stop laughing at this. It is both very funny and a clever cheap technical solution.

On the subject of gloves, check out this great guy! I had read that body as flappy meat but it's actually a tangle of nitrile gloves which look like a mutant bow-covered blouse or ghastly wedding dress? A magical transformation!

In even more hand secrets, here's an alternative solution when Lindroth doesn't need the full flappiness of real green-screened hands:

It's also interesting to see starting concepts for some of these weirdos:

Lindroth has recently been posting clever cut-throughs, the effect of a CT scan, or moving through a surface (and, as another tweet demonstrates, the green plasticine can be used as a screened-out material to support unwieldy shapes):

I don't know what's next from Mason Lindroth but absolutely I am now following them on Twitter, because I don't want to miss any more. Do head on over for more pleasing behind-the-scenes shots.