How do you keep models clean?

~Narwalmilk Dec 30, 2012 Student General Artist

I mean, clay models.
I haven't been on dA for a long while due to college work, but something that's recently become an issue since I gained a love for claymation is how on Earth to keep the models clean?

No matter how many times I wash my hands or wipe down my equipment, the clay still managed to get little bits of dirt and in particular, tiny black hairs, stuck to it. (Where do the tiny hairs even come from for goodness sake?)

And it's such a pain to try and clean off the accumulated muck from sticky plasticine, that I resorted to editing it out in post production.
It worked well on each individual photograph, but the overall animation ended up with a weird, "clay moving about when it shouldn't be" effect which you can see most prominently in the start of my animation here:
[link]

Looks weird, right?

So, please could anyone help me?
I've tried keeping everything I use near the model physically clean, which didn't work, and I've tried cleaning up each photo in Photoshop afterwards, which did work but doesn't have a very good overall result visually.

Thanks for looking, and thanks in advance for any replies.

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Devious Comments

*schris91 Dec 31, 2012 Student Filmographer

there's nothing our of the ordinary with this, just could be slightly smoother.

~Narwalmilk Dec 31, 2012 Student General Artist

What could I do to make it smoother though?

*schris91 Dec 31, 2012 Student Filmographer

more in betweens

~Narwalmilk Dec 31, 2012 Student General Artist

Oh no I meant actually cleaning up the images so that the clay doesn't look like it's moving about...

I know the actual animation isn't smooth, we only had a week to do it so it was the best I could do within the time constraints, I'm aware that's less than perfect and I know how to add more frames to make it smoother in that respect, thank you for the suggestion though.

I just really want to know how to keep the dirt from getting on the clay, or at least how to edit it out in a way that looks professional.

*schris91 Dec 31, 2012 Student Filmographer

oh, idk clean your hands? haha sorry

~Narwalmilk Dec 31, 2012 Student General Artist

That's the thing, I literally carried wipes around with me this entire project, cleaning my hands and wiping down surfaces obsessively and the darn model still got covered in bits.

Where did the bits even come from?!
I don't even know if it's a common problem because every time I try googling it, all I get is stuff about cleaning clay out of carpets.

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