CREATING A FIGURE ARMATURE FOR SCULPTURE

Step 5 FIXING AND MOUNTING THE PARTS

Now I have my armature together in a temporary fashion, but sturdy enough to allow me to mount it onto the wooden base, I carefully try to pose my piece so that it is close to my reference art as possible. Make sure you use pliers placed on your marked joints to make the bends (you want them to be crisp!) because if you try to bend them simply with your fingers you won't have a hard edge to serve as leverage and you will end up with "spaghetti" looking limbs.

Remember that your real joints bend at specific points (remember those marks you made with the Sharpie?!) so you want to make sure you are bending your wire in a similar fashion and NOT like a wet noodle (unless you are sculpting Rubber-man of course).

Once I'm satisfied with my pose (or close enough: I can always tweak it later on), I mark my piece of wood with a Sharpie where the foot pegs will go (I do this by placing my armature over my piece of wood in the approximate pose). I then take my trusty drill and make my holes using a 1/8th drill bit (the same size as my armature wire). If you have access to a drill press then that is better as your holes will be at right angles.
A regular hand drill works great too though!