CREATING A FIGURE ARMATURE FOR SCULPTURE

Step 4 MAKING THE ARMATURE PIECES

Once I've selected my wire I carefully lay it over my template. I then proceed to mark the joints (like elbows, shoulders, knees, bottom of feet, etc.) with a Sharpie and then carefully bend it according to my guide (make sure you don't miss this marking step as it will be important later on for posing!).

I make sure I leave at least 1" of length at the bottom of the feet so I can embed the armature into a piece of wood later on: this will serve as a stable base for sculpting. I use one piece of wire, bent accordingly, for the legs, torso and arms (I make two of these).
I then use a single length of wire for the spine/neck/head area (see photo).

Once I am satisfied with my pieces I then take a fine gauge wire (available from most hardware stores) and carefully wrap the three pieces together.
I do my best to wrap them fairly tight so they won't move around on me too much. It's OK if they move a round a little bit as we will set them in place later on. The main thing is that the pieces don't come apart or become too loose.

At this stage the armature won't necessarily reflect the pose of my reference material: that is OK! I'm going to make the pose adjustments later on. It is important that you lay down your armature onto a frontal orthographic view or you could end up with distortions later on. Once you have a good solid armature that is orthographic and balanced then the posing can be done after. As you will see we are going to set up the armature so that the posing will be easier while sculpting.