What do you guys think using gloves as third hand ?

As its cheap and creates same visual effect ...

It works as long as your character wears gloves normally as part of the persona, or wearing gloves lends itself to the "purpose" of the illusion. Don't just wear gloves for the sake of it.

Also, you should not use the glove third hand method just because it is cheaper. It may end up costing you more than you know in performanship and changing the rest of your act/persona to fit wearing gloves.

If you don't normally wear gloves and it doesn't fit the illusion purpose go and invest in a good third hand. Then down the line you won't have to worry about making sure new tricks/routines you get will have to fit the new gloved persona. The investment is well worth it. Beleive me.

Well mrbill..

I did thought of that before..but wearing gloves some times and without wearing will give the audience some confusion that ...

Another words, they might have seen my first performance doing some effects with the gloves as third hand.

When they get the chance to see my second performance the same routine and effect..but this time round without gloves.

So this kinda creates a confusion and dilemma where it eliminates the audience thoughts of guessing whether third hand is involve.

Basically that's my thinking of using third hand with gloves and without.

Forgot all about this! I attempted this when I was a lot younger, and I did get some rather good results, using a wireframe skeleton, along with stuffing the fingers, but wearing gloves for every performance you need this just isn't practical and can look out of place in a lot of venues, and so I binned my homemade attempt and bought myself the real thing

Tom

Now you're thinking like a Wizard, cupmagic. I did something similar, where I entered wearing ordinary (stretch) gloves because it was so cold outside, and I would blow on my hands to warm them up. Then I would do part 1 of the trick with the gloved fake. Then set the cloth down, remove my gloves, pick the cloth up again and do part 2 of the effect with the bare hand. The method I use is about to be released in Wizards' Journal #6 (on my site) under the name "Poltergeist" and you can see how easy it would be to switch gimmicks from glove to bare hand at any time in the routine.

Very good advice there. I was planning to make 3rd hand from a glove until I started thinking about the effect and my normal style and went for a real 3rd hand. Aferwards I have once performed an illusion of walking thru barbed wire and in that case I used a glove as it fit well within the context.

Here's another option that you might explore. Craft stores sell a kit for parents to make a mold of their hand holding the kid's hand as a keepsake. You get a plastic bucket with all the stuff to make a plaster positive of your hand for under $20. Once you have a plaster positive, it is straightforward to make another copy in latex or some other lightweight material to use as a third hand.

Yours,

Paul

If a S**** works for billiard balls, then so to will it with gloves. Think outside the mitten.